


Seventeen Fifty Three

by luch_anam



Series: Project 17-52/17-53 [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, Anxiety Disorder, Cassie needs a hug, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Little's are known, Lullabies, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Non-Sexual Age Play, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sarah needs a hug, Shapeshifting, So much angst, Stuffed Toys, Therapy, eventually everyone goes to therapy, shapeshifting powers are tough to deal with
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-04-29 05:03:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 24
Words: 32,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14465619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luch_anam/pseuds/luch_anam
Summary: Project Seventeen Fifty ThreeCassandra [Redacted]Mutation Classification: MetamorphicStatus: MissingCurrent Location: Avengers CompoundAlignment: Little





	1. Taking in a Stray

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone, this is my first time posting on here, as well as my first proper story featuring some of my OC's. I figured this was the best way to introduce her into this universe as well as to everyone who's reading it. thanks for reading :D

The two women are standing at the base’s entrance watching carefully as the guard rounds the corner. As he vanishes they step forward out of the tree cover.  
“Sarah are you sure this is safe, I know we can take them but it might be better to just leave…”  
“Cass, it’s safer in the long run for us to take them out now, it’s just one base, and we’ll be fine..” The taller woman smiles, winking as she rushes forward. Cass sighs when she hears Sarah shout for her and races forward shifting into a massive bear as she charges at the people who stream from the buildings door.  
“Cassie! On your right!”  
“Got it!” She shouts back and twists against the man that runs at her, moving from the bear into her normal human form.  
“Left!” She shouts to Sarah. They take down most of the agents with a few minor injuries. Sarah smiles and coughs as the dust settles.  
“Come on kid, we have a few more to get, they’re hiding out.”  
Cassie blinks and follows Sarah as she holds her hand out.  
“Sar-ah, why we gotta kill all these people?” Cassie clutches Sarah’s hand as she looks at the dead bodies around them.  
“Cassandra, sweetheart, don’t look; besides they’re not people, they’re bad guys, remember, like the ones in the cartoons..” She waits for a nod. “ We have to kill them because they could end up hurting a lot of people..”  
“But can’t we let the other superhero’s take care of ‘em.. I wanna go play!”  
“We can play after we get what we came for. Now help me look.” Sarah breaks off at lets Cassie wander around. She watches as the group of people silently blows the main door.  
“Sarah there’s other people there!!” She tugs Sarah close to the spot she was at and let her watch them.  
“Cass, can you turn into a kitty for me, like when we used to play?”  
“Yeah!!! We’re going to play?”  
“In a little bit, but I need you to pretend to be a kitty for a while, no matter what happens, okay.” She nods seriously and shrinks into a kitten. Sarah picks her up and places her in a box with a large scrap of cloth. Covering her with the blanket and kicking the box behind a pile of scrap metal.  
The men appear instantly.  
“Number 52, there you are. Did this mission go well?”  
“Yes sir.”  
“Where is number 53?”  
“Number 53 was a casualty, an unfortunate lost but easily remedied.” One of the men’s hand snaps forward so fast Cassie just sees red skin flaring up on Sarah’s skin.  
“We can’t remedy that, how can you be so careless! You lost one of the best assets we’ve had, you’ve been spending too much time out on your own, and we’re assigning a handler back to you. Maybe you’ll learn how to listen. Jacob! You’re taking on number 52, make sure you ‘remedy’ her carelessness.” The man sneers and Jacob’s face darkens the closer he gets.  
“No problem boss, we should get out of here before the Avengers get in.”  
“Glad you still have brains left to think with, now, lets go!” Cassie sits in the box and mewls softly. Sarah hadn’t told her to follow, she waits thinking maybe she’ll come and pick her up and hold her close but she ignores the cries. None of the agents pay any attention, Jacob doesn’t look back and Commander is the first out of the door. She mewls louder, it turning into crying as she hears the echoing of the door shut. She cries and un-shifts sitting in the box drumming her fingers against her leg. She wakes up and tries to find an open door or even a window to peer out from. She focuses for a moment and a cat tail curls around her ankles and ears appear against her hair. Sarah had told her to not look at the bodies so she avoids the front room where they came in. She finds a big room in the back with a bunch of computers and she busies herself trying to find one that has a computer game on it but all that pops up is ‘Enter ID code’ over and over. She’s thankful for the clock that blinks against the darkness informing her it’s only been two days. Frowning she turns her attention back to herself. She un-shifts the tail and ears, instead giving herself claws and fanged teeth, she focuses and can feel her stomach shifting into one that can digest much more than the human one. She goes off in search of food. She does not avoid the front room this time. She’s tired and hungry, kicking at the agents lying on the ground. Cassie kicks one and it groans. She winces, scurrying backwards and hiding as the man tries to stumble up. An arrow pierces the mans chest and he falls against the ground. Cassie’s not sure where the arrow came from but she stumbles forward. Maybe one of them has food. She un-shifts, shivering at how cold the floor is. The man who she thinks fired the arrow watches her. He opens his mouth but another man rounds the corner and Cassie launches herself forward  
“Papa!!” She clings to him burrowing her face into his chest.  
“I knew you’d come back! Sarah said I had’ta stay here and wait for you to come back and you did!!” The man looks at her startled. He looks to the other man and back to Cassie.  
“Clint what do I do?” Clint shrugs looking at Bruce as the rest of the team comes in.  
“Oh. Well this is new. Hello.” Steve crouches down to wave at her.  
“Who’re you?” He smiles warmly. She shivers clutching Bruce’s shirt more.  
“Cassie, my Papa say’s I shouldn’t talk to strangers though.”  
“Oh, where’s your Papa now?” Cassie tilts her head, grasping Bruce’s hand. He flinches slightly.  
“Papa!” she smiles at Steve.  
“This is going to be a mess isn’t it.”  
“We’ll it looks like we got beaten here, so we’ll just head back? We’re bringing her of course.”  
“Alright then Cassie, come with us.”  
“Where?”  
“Our home.”  
The plane ride is quiet. Clint explains what happened, how nothing was at the base besides her and the dead agents. Cassie sits, curled next to Bruce on the seat. Bruce shuffles himself sitting up and brushing his hand against his glasses. Cassie flinches back and both Steve and Bruce wince.  
“You okay kiddo?”  
“Yes sir.” She drops herself from the seat onto the floor and looks up to them. Bruce is about to say something when she rests her head against his knee. He stays quiet and watches her mumbling to herself.


	2. Personal Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory Toy Store Trip

She’s quiet as Steve watches her on the couch. Clint wrapped her up in one of the softest blankets they have and she is no longer shivering. Her arms and legs have been bandaged, Steve’s thankful none of the cuts or gashes had needed stitches but he still worries about infection as the base they found her in wasn’t anywhere close to clean. Bruce watches her from the corner of his eye as she picks at the bandage. He clicks his tongue at her and she stills, her chest rising and falling faster.  
“Kid, it’s okay, he was just telling you that you can’t pick at the bandages.”  
“Bad dog?”  
“No, good dog?” Clint lets the confusion go as she seems to relax. She drums her fingers against her arms moving them up and down trying not to dig her fingers into her skin. Bruce hands her a hunk of clay and she stares at it before she squeezes it in her hands, a small smile slips on her face before it’s wiped off.  
“Yours..” she pushes it back towards him.  
“No, it’s yours, you can have it, I have more for me.” He holds up a handful of the clay and Bruce watches as she smooth’s and squishes the clay.  
“Kitty!” she holds up a small figure of a cat, one of its ears falls off and she pulls it back frowning.  
“It’s good, you made a really good kitty!” Bruce smiles encouragingly. She frowns at it, and then squishes it between her fingers.  
“Kitty wasn’t perfect so it has to be remade, it’ll be better this time.”  
“Alright, we can get you more clay if you want? In different colours too.”  
“Where, Papa’s the only one with it.”  
“You ever been to a toy store?”  
“I don’t know what that is..”  
“Well how about we go out somewhere for a surprise tomorrow? Since you were such a good girl and let us fix up all the bumps and scrapes you got.”  
“Surprise for me?” Bruce smiles at her tucking her blanket closer as she curls against the couch cushions.  
“You’ll be fine kiddo, it’ll be fun.” "Cass, were going out today, remember, for a surprise.."  
She nods glancing around the room nervously.  
"We’re going somewhere to let you get something for yourself, like the clay from yesterday."  
"For me?" Steve smiles encouragingly and she brightens up when Bruce asks if she’s ready. The entire team goes. Tony looks just about as excited as Wanda; Cassie looks terrified at the car they all start to get into. She shivers as she passes through the door and Steve buckles her and Wanda in. Cassie falls asleep as soon as the car starts moving.  
Tony’s bouncing on his heels as he excitedly points out all the various toys. Wanda drags Natasha off to the doll section and Clint and Sam manage to find the Nerf weapons. Even with the store relatively quiet Bucky, who hangs back by the door can see Cassie getting overwhelmed, Bruce is distracted by Tony who's excitedly talking about merging ten of the kiddie science kits together to make a super volcano.  
"Kid, you okay?" Cassie turns stumbling forward as she presses her face toward Bucky’s hand, he steps forward a little faster and hugs her as she shakes.  
"Bruce." Bruce turns at the sound of his name and frowns at Cassie's shivering form, she cowers behind Bucky sniffling as she peeks from under his arm.  
"Hey kiddo, what’s wrong? Is it too loud or are there too many people."  
"Too big." Bruce looks around the massive two-story store, the glass panels on the second floor show Clint crouched hiding from Sam.  
"Is it just that it’s too big, or is there something else?"  
"New stuff, I don’t deserve it cause I’m not a good dog."  
"Girl Cassie, you’re a little girl remember, not a dog." she sniffles and nods screwing her eyes shut before opening them and blinking away tears.  
"We could try a thrift store instead."  
"What’s that?"  
"Its where people take things that the don’t need, so someone else can get them instead... would you like to go there?" Cassie nods wide eyed as Bruce takes her hand and they start walking down the street. Steve looks anxiously around as he catches up to them  
"Bruce wouldn't it be better to take the car?"  
"Well for you, people don’t recognize me much." He laughs.  
"Perks of actually having an alter ego who looks different than me."  
They’re walking through the store; Cassie looks amazed at the array of stuff.  
"You can pick out anything you want."  
"Anything?" She frowns as she looks at the massive expanse of shelves that tower over her. She ducks around another shelf and Bruce is relieved when she makes a beeline for the plush, he’s not sure what creeps him out about the wall of dolls they have but he shy's away from it anyways.  
"Mousey!!!" Bruce smiles as she grasps for the stuffed mouse that’s sitting on the shelf. He ignores the paranoia that the mouse hadn’t been there when he checked earlier. He grabs it down for her and she clutches it tight.  
"Mouse, Mouse mouse mouseeee." She sings softly.  
"You really like mice huh kid?"  
"Yeah they're my only friends in the cages, plus they don’t tell on me when I break rules.." Bruce nods filing the information away and hushing the alarm bells to discuss it later. Steve appears around the corner and Bruce squashes the ever-present anxiety at being called for a mission.  
"You guys find something?" he smiles at Cassie as she holds up the mouse. He turns to Bruce lowering his voice.  
"There’s a bunch of people with camera's and-"  
"Paparazzi, that the word you’re looking for Steve." Steve blinks at him.  
"No not those vultures, like fans, with camera's, so I was going to offer to take her so that way no one brings her up, I've already signed about fifty autographs." Bruce nods as he's paying for the mouse he leans down to Cassie.  
"You'll have to go with Steve for a little bit, there's a lot of people that I have to talk to, but ill be back at home soon." Bruce looks up to Steve.  
"Don't tell tony."  
"Tell tony what?" Steve smiles. Bruce nods and walks out the front door busying himself with everyone. Steve readies himself to sneak out the back but pauses when he can’t see Cassie, he’s about to call out to her when she appears in front of him.  
"Ready to go?"  
"Yes sir!"  
"Cass, what have we said about that?"  
"You’re not a handler you’re an uncle."


	3. Leftovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate POV to the last chapter, a slight bit of plot

She quiet as she watches them. She can see Cassie standing shifting from foot to foot. Barnes blocks her vision momentarily and Cassie appears cowering behind him. She frowns at Banners ignorance. She wonders what Cassie has told them. Judging by how they brought her to such an open large shop it wasn’t much. She watches as Banner speaks to Cassie and then turns to Barnes. Rogers appears moments later. She ducks against the wall as Cassie and Banner start off down the street. Rogers jogs up to them and she takes a moment to breathe before vanishing and reappearing in the thrift shop she hopes they’ll visit. She places the mouse, a bright red bow tied against it’s neck. She waits watching for Cassie’s head to appear. Banner walks in first as she walks out. She brushes her finger against Cassie’s and watches as she stalls for a moment. Cassie tries to move out of the shop but Banner brings her in. The woman watches for a moment before appearing against the lamp post on the other side of the street. Two men flank her. They watch Rogers as he rounds the corner and gets hounded by the fans outside as the two men grasp her arms nervously.  
“She get the package?”  
“Sarah, we need to know if-“  
“You idiots, look.” Sarah gestures over to the side of the street where Rogers and Cassie emerge. She hadn’t see Roger’s double back. Cassie clutches the mouse against her chest as she holds Roger’s hand. Sarah can sense it when the twins tense.  
“She looks sick.” They shuffle a foot forward and Sarah shifts herself to grip both their arms. Cassie’s eyes widen and she darts forward rushing over to try to reach them. Sarah vanishes them as she’s halfway across the street. Sarah can hear her pained cry as they end up back in the lab.  
“You okay?”  
“I should be asking you two that, you haven’t seen her in what five years? It’s only been about a month for me..”  
“She’s probably crying now you know..” Sarah sighs and sits herself in a chair.  
“Shut up Mark.”  
“Jacob, did you hear that, our own creation, telling us to shut up..”  
“The creations always do surpass the maker..” Sarah quips back at them smiling.  
“ ’cept you two, still as dumb as a bag of rocks, can’t believe you two are sort of my parents.” Sarah laughs bumping their shoulders as she stands.  
“Mr. Miller is hard to pass, his intelligence is very high. We can’t just take the company from him. We have to have a plan. A cast iron trap one at that.”  
“Steel trap. It’s called a steel trap.”  
“See this is why the plan won’t work we don’t even know our metaphors!”  
“It’s not a metaphor, it’s a phrase.” Sarah sighs at their arguments.  
“What do we need to do again?” They turn back to her.  
“Just ask him about the will he has, ask about being added into it, that’s all, nothing fancy..”  
“We’re going to kill him?” Jacob pales and Mark looks horrified at his own hands.  
“Sarah, we’ve done horrible things, but we, I ,I can’t be-“  
“Save the dramatic speech, we’re not going to kill him, it’s not his actual will, it’s the will of the company.”  
“Oh, so we’re going to ask about the companies infrastructure and the line of inheritance for the company if he should step down or become otherwise unfit for the position of CEO and Head Scientist.”  
“You do listen.”  
“Well all we have to do is ask, you have the hard part, which is causing him to be ‘otherwise unfit’ how on earth are you planning on doing that?”  
“I’m not the only creation he’s made.”  
“Sarah, you can’t. You can’t use her like that, we can’t allow that.”  
“It’s not using her, it’s giving her the choice. I would never make her do something she doesn’t want to; I’m not Dr. Miller.”  
“Still you’ll need to be careful, the Avengers are taking care of her, how on earth are you going to get her back?”  
“I’m not.”  
“There’s no way we can get her, we cant even leave the lab for longer than an hour, Sarah there’s no way we-“ Sarah hold up her hand a smile grows on her face.  
“I’m going to become an Avenger…”


	4. Overhearing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Research turns into a confession which turns into the beginning of a mess

Steve and Bruce are pouring over records any and all mutants hoping to find anything about Cassie. There’s no mention of a shape-shifter that can shift into multiple things so far.  
“Cassie, do you know your last name? Or what your parents name’s were?”  
“I don’t see why you don’t just get a blood sample.” Tony watches as Bruce hands him a syringe.  
“Go on then. You try.” Steve winces as Tony steps forward.  
“Cassie, I need to get a blood sample, it wont take long, just a pinch.” Tony steps forward hiding the syringe behind his back.  
“Needle?”  
“Yeah just a little one though it’ll be over in a flash.” He slowly moves the needle in front of him smiling reassuringly. Cassie squirms in her seat and pulls the mouse closer to her. She looks warily at Tony as she scoots her chair back slightly.  
“Cassie, don’t run. We need to do this to see if we can find out more about you, since when we ask, you can’t tell us anything.” Tony can hear a whine bubbling up from her mouth and he cringes back as she wails. He grits his teeth and steps forward reaching his hand to brush against her arm.  
“Cassie, unless you tell us what you remember we have to, I’m sorry, but there’s no other way kiddo.” She sniffles and backs away as Tony’s hand inches further forward. She growls in the back of her throat and Tony pauses, he draws his hand back and the sound quiets.  
“Would you rather Bruce does it? It has to be done; everyone has to get a blood sample done, to make sure they aren’t sick. It’ll help us find out who you are, since you can’t talk about it right now.” Tony steps forward again and manages to get his hand around her arm before he’s flung backwards, a massive dog snarling in Cassie’s place. Tony sighs and both Bruce and Steve frown at him.  
“Tony look what you did, she’ll be panicking when she comes out of it.” Bruce walks over and she vaults herself backwards scrambling to hide under the table growling and whining covering her face with her paws.  
“Cassie, come here kiddo, Tony didn’t mean it..” She snarls bearing her teeth and as Bruce backs up she whines and curls closer to herself. Steve doesn’t bother trying to move towards her instead he beckons Bruce and Tony closer.  
“You two are just scaring her, I suggest we leave her alone for the moment and wait. She’ll change back on her own, and then we can ask about everything, we wont get a blood sample yet, and besides, we should do that at a doctors office anyways.” The three of them reluctantly leave the room. Cassie picks up her head and whines.  
 _They left. They left you because you’re a bad dog, see you growled at them you, snarled and were vicious they hate that you should have stayed quiet, you would have been good then. They wouldn’t have left you. You’re a bad dog, such a bad dog number 53._  
She whimpers and scrapes at her ears.  
 _Useless little creature if you were better at shape-shifting they would have stayed. If you were better at remembering they would have been so proud but you’re useless as always._  
Cassie whimpers and bumps her head against the door, she howls and cries and the door slides open, she tenses unsure if she should step out of the doorway.  
 _Last time, last time it hurt, they didn’t tell you to wait here, but imagine what would happen if they find your gone…_ Cassie closes her eyes as she can feel a cold jolt against her skin. Cassie shivers as the agents clip the collar around her neck. Sarah doesn’t have one around her but she has a little band around her ankle that beeps when she teleports. Sarah tells her it’s tracking. Cassie wonders if hers does that too, so she shifts and then move towards the open door. As soon as she passes the doorway she feels pain. Needles and knives crawling up her skin and into her bones, she scrambles back towards Sarah and as soon as she passes the doorway the pain stops. It had only taken her minutes to figure out going outside got her shocks and beatings. It took her years to figure out she could unclip the collar. Cassie shakes her head and can’t hear the bell jungle from the collar, still she paces at the doorway and settles against leaving the room. She curls up in the corner near the window and whines.  
Cassie wakes up on the floor and looks at her hand for a moment, she shifts it slightly and her claws stretch from her finger nails. She drums them against the floor and taps out a rhythm, she hums a little wrapping her other arm around herself and curling into as small of a ball as possible.  
She falls back asleep and when Bucky stumbles in the lab looking for Bruce he see’s her curled around herself and the mouse. He pauses before walking over and picking her up as he decides to check the common room for Bruce.  
Bucky places Cassie on the couch and tucks her under a blanket. He watches her for a moment before turning around.  
“Oh she came out of-“  
“What the actual fuck banner.” Bucky snarls backing Bruce up to the wall. Bruce’s catches himself against the table as he stumbles backwards. Steve moves forward.  
“Bucky what are you-“  
“Sit your ass down, this doesn’t concern you.” Steve freezes in shock at how painful it is to see the Winter Soldier standing in Bucky’s place.  
“You left a Little in a room she probably associates with torture, not only that but you participated in and let other people scare her by re-inflicting and recreating scenario’s that are traumatising to her. Why the hell did you do that? What kind of parent would do that to-“  
“I’m not her parent. I’m not her dad, or father or any kind of guardian, I’m not even stable enough to take care of myself daily, who the hell thought it was a good idea to stick me with that kid, let alone one who’s probably be traumatised by a scientist, which in case you haven’t noticed I AM! I’m what her trauma is built around it’s one of the reasons she clings so much to me. He father, whoever the fuck he is, probably was one, he probably spent so much time in the lab he never noticed her, I can’t be that person for her and I never wanted to. She chose me, and I’m trying, I’m trying to do the best that I can to but I have my limits, and my limits are when she turns into a massive fucking dog and tries to attack cause Tony’s too stubborn to let the blood sample thing drop. I can handle her panic attacks and meltdowns but I’m not going to allow her to be violent to get what she wants, even if she doesn’t know what it is. She’s traumatized and I’m not going to ignore that but I can’t be the support she needs.” Bucky takes a step back.  
“Bruce, you should have told us, it would have been so much easier to tell her you couldn’t be her daddy, and let someone else take that place.” Steve steps forward. Bruce steps back again.  
“I want to be there, and I’m trying I know I reacted badly, and I’m sorry but I didn’t know what else to do.”  
“You talk to us, we’re a family. We communicate. And Tony, don’t pull that shit again. We’ll try again tomorrow. We’ll make a plan tonight. Bucky, look after her for tonight.” Bucky nods tension leaving his shoulders. Bruce and Tony rush out of the room, claiming they need to clean the lab up. Steve glares at Bucky.  
“Steve I-“  
“You don’t do that again. I know you meant well, and it’s a huge comfort someone went and got her. But that shit with Banner. You don’t push him like that again.”  
“Well if he’s not pushed it seems he just keeps himself locked away in his lab.” Bucky retorts.  
“Buck you need to be careful everything is tense right now, if we just knew more about Cassie a lot of it would settle.” Bucky nods hanging his head in shame. He makes his way over to the couch peering over. Cassie looks up to him sniffling.  
“Oh, oh no, oh sweetheart..”  
“It’s okay, my other papa didn’t want me either.”  
“No sweetie, that’s not what he meant, he’s just struggling a little is all.” Bucky winces as Cassie curls into the couch tucking the mouse into her shoulder.


	5. Explaining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mess gets worse, but is slowly getting cleaned

“I can go away if he wants. The other people said I was ‘unstable and hard to control’ I know I’m not a good Little it’s okay. I bet Sarah or Jacob and Mark’ll want me again.”  
“Who?” Steve perks his head up.  
“Mark an’ Jacob they work with Sarah, she’s got her powers when I did.” Steve leans forward in the chair.  
“Do you know their names?”  
“Mark and Jacob! I already told you, sometimes they got angry an’ called Sarah Number 52.”  
“Wait can she teleport?”  
“Yeah! Sarah’s real good at it! She can even go places someone’s only told her about!”  
“Tony! Remember that girl you saw at the base when we found Cassie?” Steve turns as Tony slinks into the common room.  
“Yeah she vanished after we brought Cassie out..”  
“You have a recording of her from your suit right, can you play it..”  
“Yeah here..” Cassie turns to the screen and stares as Sarah’s figure stands against the forest background. She’s looking past the camera and as Tony moves towards her she vanishes into the air. Tony turns the screen off.  
“You recognise her kiddo?”  
“Yeah! That’s Sarah!!”  
“Great the only person we can get any information from is working for the bad guys.”  
“We could find somewhere she goes and maybe meet her there.”  
“This is a mess, I’m glad we found someone who can help so lets focus on that. We can regroup tomorrow. Tony; how’s Bruce?”  
“He’ll be fine, just keep winter away from him.” Tony snaps.  
“Tony..”  
“Sorry its just-“  
“He’s right, I overstepped I’m sorry Tony, tell Bruce I don’t blame him for anything.”  
“You don’t believe that. Just tell me what part of what you spewed at me was true.” Bruce appears looking exhausted in the doorway.  
“You should have stepped forward and told someone you were uncomfortable with her latching onto you. You should have let one of us know you were struggling.”  
“How was I supposed to do that.”  
“How about: ‘Hey guys I’m feeling uncomfortable with taking care of Cassie, I need some time to figure it out.’ There, all done and no ones feeling get hurt.” Cassie chooses this moment to peek her head over the couch, her mouse peeking over as well. Bruce gulps.  
“Cassie I’m really sorry I didn’t mean any of that about you.”  
“You did, you meant it about me cause you wouldn’t have said it otherwise, it’s okay, I can go away if you want.”  
“No kiddo that’s not what I want.”  
“But you don’t want me.”  
“Cassie, we’re just stressed, that’s all if we just knew if you have a family you want to get back to, or people you want to let know you’re okay. That’s all we want. We just want to help you.”  
Cassie lowers herself back to the couch and covers herself with the blanket curling under it. A muffled response comes from under the blanket.  
“Wait, you can shape-shift!” Cassie peeks her head from the blanket.  
“Just turn into what your dad looks like, not Bruce, like your actual dad.”  
“ ‘m not allowed to I get shocks if I do..”  
“We wont shock you we don’t even have anything that can shock you, it’ll be okay, we wont hurt you…” Cassie shakes her head and hides back under the blanket.  
“We’re regrouping tomorrow, everyone go rest. Buck, watch over her.” Cassie peeks over the blanket yet again scooting her hand from under it to touch Bucky’s shoulder as he leans against the couch.  
“Yeah?”  
“ You got hurt by people too. Does it go away?”  
“ Yes, I know the bad people can’t get to me anymore; so I know it wont happen again.”  
“Why does everyone want to send me back to them then?”  
“Sarah, and Mark and Jacob they..”  
“No they were good, and nice to me, Jacob and Mark would give me treats when I was good.” He smiles at her.  
“Come on kid, let’s go get you into a proper bed..” Bucky picks her up and brings her to one of the guest rooms. He settles himself in the chair and watches her stare at the bed. She touches the blankets and squishes her hand into the pillow. He smiles at her startled gasp when she pulls the sheets back. She crawls into the bed bringing her mouse up to rest on the pillow as she tucks it in.  
“You sure love that little mouse huh.”  
“Mice are good friends.”  
“Yeah they are.” Bucky smiles.  
“Rats aren’t good though, rats are mean and snap, snap snap, at all the cuts. Snap snap snap.” She looks up pale and shaky.  
“Cass, shhh, it’s alright, I’ll sit with you till you fall asleep okay, I can tell you a story..” she nods blinking a few times as her eyes come back into focus.  
“Sleep time or I’ll get shocks right?”  
“No shocks here. Just go to sleep I’ll be right here till you wake up.” She nods and clings to her mouse as she drifts off. Steve peeks in a while later to find Bucky half on the bed asleep, Cassie’s hand curling in his hair. Bruce peers into the room behind him.  
“He’d be a better dad..” Steve moves out pressing his head against the wall. Bruce watches him confused.  
“He would, but not until he deals with all his trauma, right now he’s not really being a dad to her, he’s relating to her. Which can be very dangerous, he’s seeing himself in her and he’s doing as much as he can to protect her from what he went through…”  
“That’s good though, it’s what a dad is supposed to do.”  
“It is, but not when she’s associated with Hydra or AIM or whoever those guys are. We can’t trust her…”  
“Steve, she’s a child, a heavily traumatized child she can barely eat cereal on her own.”  
“She is just a kid, and she’s traumatized, which makes her very dangerous if she thinks we’re going to send her back or if we act too much like them, and we don’t know what they did.. You saw what happened when tony tried with that needle.. It would just be easier if she would talk to us or tell us something.” He sighs and waves goodnight to Bruce. Bruce nods and retreats back to his own room. Sarah appears in the bedroom watching both Cassie and Bucky sleep.  
“Oh Cass, I’m so sorry about all this. It’ll be over soon I promise.” Sarah kisses her head, and clips a collar around her neck before vanishing. Bucky wakes up to find Cassie curled against his side on the floor.  
“Cass, what you doing on the floor?”  
“Bad dog.”  
“You’re not a bad dog sweetheart, you’re; wait where’d you get the –“ Bucky frowns as he recongnises a crude shock collar.  
“Woke up with it on. Means I was a bad dog so I gotta sleep on the floor.” She shakes her head and Bucky hears a bell jingle. He frowns, but brushes her hair back looking at the tiny bell attached to it, he’s looking for a small light to see if the collar is activated finding none, he deems it semi-safe for the moment.  
“You don’t have to wear that, now how about breakfast?” Cassie nods but doesn’t take it off.  
“Alright, I guess it’s familiar, it doesn’t seem to be a problem right now.”


	6. Playgroup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Playtime

“Cassie!! I had the best time at playgroup yesterday you should come!” Wanda shouts banging her spoon against the table and looking sheepishly as Steve raises an eyebrow.  
“Playgroup?”  
“Uh-huh, I’m going today again, you can come and meet my friend Jemma! She has a sister and a brother! Mommy can Cassie come with us today?” Wanda beams up at Natasha who looks over to Cassie.  
“If she want’s too, we can tell her all about it after breakfast, and she can decide if she wants to go..” Cassie sits in a chair and is given a small plate with some banana and apples as well as a small bowl of peanut butter.  
“So playgroup is where Wanda, and her friends spend time just playing and are able to relax, and all of their mommy’s and Daddy’s can talk and after a little while we all go back home. Does that sound like fun? You don’t have to play with the other kids though, you can always play by yourself or sit with one of us.” Cassie chews her lip but nods slowly.  
“If you get too overwhelmed you can always sit in the car too.” Natasha smiles and shoo’s Wanda towards her room.  
“Go get dressed, we’ll be leaving in an hour.” Cassie looks down at her at her clothes, and oversized shirt and a pair of too big shorts. She looks up to Natasha and places her hand on the table leaning forward a tiny bit, Natasha turns to her.  
“Clothes?”  
“Of course, I can help you pick out something in a few minutes okay?” Cassie nods and waits chewing the last bites of the apple.  
“Alright, Wanda, is it okay if Cassie wears something of yours?” Wanda nods and Natasha leads Cassie into Wanda’s room and opens the closet and a few drawers.  
“So we’ll get you a shirt and some bottoms, you can pick out what you want from here.” Natasha gestures to the open doors. Cassie stares wide-eyed before looking back at Natasha looking confused.  
“Alright, here, let me help.” Natasha pulls a few shirts and a few different bottoms and lays them out on the bed.  
“Which top do you want?” Cassie points to white shirt with Eeyore on the front. Natasha nods pulling it over he head.  
“Alright now bottoms.” She picks up a pair of short overalls and smiles holding them up to Natasha. Natasha helps her step into them and as she buttons the straps Wanda races in pulling Cassie forward towards the door.

 

When they get to playgroup Natasha stops them before they go through the door.  
“Now, you two need to look after each other okay?” Both Wanda and Cassie nod and they walk in. Wanda starts to rush over to Jemma but pauses turning back to Cassie.  
“Come on, let’s met Jemma! She’s super nice!” Cassie nods and smiles following Wanda.  
“Hi ‘m Jemma!” Jemma sticks out her hand, she’s wearing a bright pink shirt with glittery princesses on it.  
“Cassie.” She clutches the overall strap with the hand she’s not holding out to shake.  
“Nice to meet you! Wanda and I normally play school, but we’re not going to cause Jennifer’s over there and she’s mean, so we’re going to play with dolls.” Cassie looks over to see whom she assumes is Jennifer over in the ‘school’ area.   
“We can go play school, we just have to ask her nicely.” Cassie smiles at the two girls who share a confused glance. They shake their heads.   
“She calls everyone mean names and picks on Wanda a lot..”  
“Picks on?” Cassie looks confused at the table.  
“Yeah, it means that she makes fun of her, and only does it to her.. she gang’s up on her a lot too.” Cassie looks worriedly to Wanda.  
‘Does it hurt? When she gangs up on you?”  
“Sometimes but I know Jemma’s here and I can always go to Mommy or one of the other parents if I need to!” Wanda smiles brightly, Cassie beams back at her.  
“And me!” She looks hopefully to Wanda and wiggles in excitement as Wanda nods.  
They settle in to the large mat area, and Jemma hands Cassie a doll.  
‘What do you do with it?”  
“Well Wanda and I like to pretend that they’re princesses and are going to get married!” Cassie nods and watches as Jemma and Wanda play for a moment, she slowly joins in and soon is laughing along with both of them.  
“We should play school now!”  
“Cassie, Jennifer is real mean, she made fun of Wanda cause of her accent and said mean stuff.”  
“But I wanna know what school is..” Jemma and Wanda try to argue but Cassie keeps insiting they just need to ask nicely.  
“Besides, If she makes fun of Wanda I can help stop her.”  
“Yeah! With Cassie an’ me on your side she wont stand a chance!” Jemma shouts pumping her fist in the air. The three girls make their way over to the area with a desk and chalkboard.  
“Hi, we wanna play school, can we play over here with you?”  
“Who’re you?” Jennifer stares at Cassie.  
“Cassie.” Jennifer snorts a laugh and walks a circle around Cassie. Cassie stills until Jennifer returns to her field of vision.  
“You live with Wanda? Did you live out in the garbage as well?”  
“Cassie it’s okay don’t listen to her…” Jemma grabs her shoulder to move her away but she shrugs it off.  
“No I lived in a big building with a buncha rooms.”  
“Why are you friends with Wanda, she’s just a freak.” Cassie blinks furrowing her brow.  
“I got called that a bunch too, so I know what it means, Wanda ain’t a freak.” Jennifer scowls and shoves Cassie’s shoulder. Cassie bites down on her lip.   
“Oh, you’re this kinda mean.” Cassie’s eyes widen as Jennifer smirks and steps closer.  
“I’m gonna get Mommy…” Wanda scurries off with Jemma following and Jennifer laughs.  
“Look they left you alone, the dumpster girl doesn’t even want to be with you.”  
“They left to get help for you..” Cassie beams at her.  
“I don’t need help. I can do stuff all on my own.” Cassie cocks her head.  
“No, not to help you with things, to help you.” Cassie smiles and Jennifer backs up as she see’s fangs.  
“You really are a freak!”  
“I told you I was, you should listen more, and be nice.” Cassie steps forward and Jennifer scrambles back.  
“I’m not even scary right now…” Cassie licks her lips and steps closer. She snickers, wiggling her fingers as they sharpen and lengthen.  
“Cassandra!” Immediately Cassie tenses unshifting and hiccupping and she stumbles forward towards Sarah’s figure.  
“You can’t go scaring other kids like that you should be ashamed of yourself.”  
“Excuse me who are you?” Natasha’s standing in front of Sarah and Sarah smiles.  
“Sarah, pleasure to meet you, I used to take care of Cassandra I’ve been busy with work and she ran off, so I was hoping to talk to you about getting her back to my house now that I’m less busy.” She smiles pleasantly and Natasha nods.  
“We’ll contact you later, the girls need to finish up play time.”  
“Of course, I’ll see you all later.” Natasha turns to Cassie as Sarah vanishes.  
“Cassie what happened, Wanda said she heard you saying you were going to hurt Jennifer?”  
“Jemma said Jennifer is mean to Wanda and you said you wanted me to look out for Wanda and Jennifer can’t be mean no more if she don’t go near Wanda I wasn’t gonna kill her I just wanted to scare her!” Cassie holds up her clawed hands.  
“Cassie, sweetie, that’s very sweet but that’s not okay, it’s not nice to scare people even if they are really mean. Why don’t you try changing into something fun, or something everyone can enjoy.. Could you try that..” Cassie’s eyes widen in excitement.  
“We can play fairytale!! Jemma and I can be princesses and so can Cassie.” Natasha smiles at Wanda.  
“That sounds very good girls, now, how about you go play over there, maybe Skye and Colleen and Misty want to play too?” Natasha nudges them over to another group of kids. Wanda and Jemma nod and race off with Cassie following close behind.  
“I’m sorry about Jennifer..”  
“It’s okay, she was a bully, my daddy says you shouldn’t care what bullies think! Now what should we ride while we’re princesses?”  
“I wanna ride a unicorn!”  
“Whats that?”  
“How do you not know what a unicorn is! It’s a magical horse with a horn!! They’re magic and super pretty!!” Misty smiles at her.  
“Magic?”  
“Yeah like Wanda’s powers!”  
“I have powers.. What does a unicorn looks like?” Wanda holds up a picture of a horse smiling.  
“Like this but with a big horn! And pink!” Cassie’s eyes light up.  
“I can do that!” She shouts excitedly before shifting. She kneels down and Wanda, Skye, Jemma, Colleen and Misty are on her back. Cassie shakes her head letting her mane wave in the pretend breeze she creates. She trots around the area for a second before Jemma asks if they can go see their parents. Cassie prances forward neighing softly as she moves in front of the group of parents.  
Jessica and Natasha share a look of shock but it’s Phil who moves forward.  
“Who on earth brought a horse in here!” He stands in front of them scowling.  
“All of you off the horse.” The unicorn kneels down and all the kids get off. Natasha walks up.  
“Cassie, is that you?” The unicorn nods and Cassie shifts back to her human form. She’s smiling rocking on her heels but she stops when she see’s Phil frowning.  
“Wow, that was incredible, but next time, just let us know before you do that, you could’ve hurt someone alright sweetie..” He smiles at her and she nods. Natasha shoo’s her away to continue playing.  
They settle into a group drawing pictures. Jemma’s drawing a picture of her family and Wanda does as well.  
“Cassie you gonna draw your family?”  
“Nope, I’m gonna draw my favourite day ever!”  
“When was that?”  
“I got to be a fancy dog at a dog show!!” She scribbling out the carpet she remembers and the multiple dogs she wanted to pet.  
“Whose that?”  
“He’s the guy who walked me around everywhere! He even gave me treats!”  
“Oh Mommy’s here..” Wanda turns to Natasha. Cassie blinks slowly looking exhausted.  
“I drew Daddy a picture of all of us!” Natasha smiles.  
“Very good, Cassie what did you draw?” Cassie hold the photo up.  
“Oh, a dog show, that sounds exciting, whose that?” Natasha points to a man in all black.  
“That’s the guy who walked me around, he gave me treats!! And then we-“ Cassie turns as Sarah appears.  
“Is play time over now?”  
“Yes, we can go back and discuss everything.” Sarah nods and follows them towards the car. Natasha buckles Wanda and Cassie in and turns to Sarah.  
“I trust you know where the Avengers tower is? I’ll have Tony let you in.”  
“Thank you.” Sarah smiles and vanishes.


	7. Reintroduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah re-enters for a moment

“I’ll just bring everyone in so we can all meet you.” Natasha nods and Sarah settles herself on the couch. Bucky’s one of the first people to say hello, he walks over and shakes her hand, his metal arm snags her hair and she yelps and she tugs it back.  
“Oh god I’m so sorry, it’s been freezing up lately.”  
“Your arms been messing up?” Tony waves but pulls Bucky towards the lab.  
‘We need to figure out what’s wrong, it could mess with your nerves, with how its connected, this is serious why didn’t you tell me sooner.” Tony sets him one of the labs chairs and as he starts to pull out his tools Bucky drops the handful of black hair that was tangled in the plates.  
“There, do a DNA test on that.. My arms fine. I’m sure she’s lying about everything she can get away with. Make her regret it.”  
“Sometimes I forget you’re the ex-winter solider.” Bucky nods and returns to the main room where Steve is questioning Sarah.  
“So Sarah, why should we let Cassie go back with you, last we saw you was when she was abandoned…”  
“ I know but I had to do that, if Dr. Miller knew she was alive he would have hunted her down. I’m trying to take him down, he’s the reason Cassandra and I are like this.. He ‘gave’ us our powers. And he thinks he owns us.”  
“So you want to take her back to that?” Bruce frowns.  
“No I want to ask for you to keep us safe..”  
“We’ll keep her safe, she’s just a kid, but you, you know better, if what you’re saying is true, then you’ve been aware of what you’ve been doing for the past, however many years. You had a choice and you chose not to leave.” Bucky looks at her from the doorway.  
“It was I either stay there and live or I get killed for running away.”  
“But you got free now, right? Or are you just ‘visiting’?” Steve raises an eyebrow.  
“I’m ‘visiting’ as you put it, an intel mission is what I’m supposed to be doing but when I got their everything was destroyed..”  
“Leave.” Bruce speaks up stepping forward slightly.  
“You’re putting us all in danger by being here, especially Cassie, if they think she’s dead why risk exposing her by coming here.”  
“Because I need her help. Cass, you know exactly what I’m talking about, stop playing around, be an adult for once, we need you, Mark and Jacob and me, we need your help, the actual you, not this child version you hide behind..”  
“Out.” Steve glares.  
‘What? I just, I’m trying to help and-“  
“You just completely invalidated her trauma and how she copes..”  
“She’s just pretending Jacob and Mark said the serum fixed being Little, she’s just acting trying to get in your head is all.” Cassie steps back away from Sarah clutching her mouse.  
“Cassandra.” She hisses and Steve steps forward, Bucky wraps and arm around Cassie, and Bruce blocks Sarah’s view.  
“Out.” It’s Tony who says this, a beam trained on her chest. Sarah huffs dragging her hands down her face.  
‘Fine, I’ll leave, I won’t bother her unless someone’s around.” Sarah pauses peering around Bruce to see Cassie cowering behind Bucky.  
“You can’t hide it forever number 53.” She hisses and vanishes. Cassie whines and cries against Bucky’s side. Tony nods and Steve waits for a moment.  
“Bucky got hair for a DNA sample, and you guys aren’t going to believe this..”  
“Spit it out Tony..”  
“Her DNA doesn’t match anything I’ve seen before, it’s mutated beyond belief, beyond what as far I can tell is human.”  
“So she’s effectively an alien?”  
“No, her DNA is mutated, but most of the genes aren’t active. They’re not doing anything besides showing up on the test, I bet you anything Cassie’s are the same.”  
“Why did you need a blood sample if you can use hair?”  
“Blood sample is far far more accurate…” Steve sighs and Cassie shakes her head rapidly.  
“It’s okay, no needles, now, how about you go for a nap, I bet being around all those people exhausted you..” She nods and slumps on the couch, curling around her mouse.  
“Come on kiddo, I’ll put you to bed.” Bruce holds out his hand, she stumbles forward sniffling.  
“ ‘M sorry about Sarah papa, she didn’t mean it.. she just wants the company..” Cassie whines and Bruce casts a concerned glance to the rest of the team who shrug.  
“it’s alright, lets get you to bed..”  
“Okay, will there be more of the agents, I don’t wanna have to do stuff for ‘em I'm tired..” Bruce freezes.  
‘No, there wont be any of them, not anymore.” Cassie nods and lets herself be carried to the bed.

Cassie wakes up and stumbles from the room.  
“Cassie, you’re awake, how’re you feeling? It’s about three pm”  
“ ‘m fine, just could use some coffee, you’s got any?”   
“Cassie?” Steve watches as she moves around the kitchen pulling out the pot of full coffee and pouring herself a cup. She swigs half of it down grimacing.  
“Whoa there kiddo what are you doing?” Bruce frowns at the half empty mug of coffee.  
“Drinkin’ coffee, nightmares kept me up so this is the next best thing to sleep..”  
“Nightmares? You have nightmares? How often?”  
“Yeah, got real good at not screamin’ cause I’d get shocked if I did. Have ‘em most nights..”  
“How old are you?”  
“ I’m not little if that’s what you’re asking, Sarah didn’t trigger any weird sleeper agent thing in me. She did trigger me though..”  
“You want to talk about it.” Cassie sputters around the cup of coffee.  
“You sure you wanna hear all of it, cause that’s what I’d have to tell you.. It’s ain’t pretty..” Both Bruce and Steve nod settling into the kitchen chairs. Cassie sighs nodding and chewing her lip.


	8. Big

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassie wakes up Big  
> TW: major warnings on this chapter it deals with abuse and rape

I was five, when my dad told me I had to go to the lab where he worked. I was so excited until he told me it was to get another vaccine. I remember pouting the entire time I had just gotten a few shots a week before I didn’t think I needed another. As it turns out none of those were actually vaccinations. But I didn’t know any better. That day, that my dad brought me in, was the last time I saw him. His face is blurry to me even now, its almost like a mirror is smudged. I remember that day so clearly; I went into that lab and I didn’t come out, not as me anymore. Sometimes I think I died in there and this body is just one of the shapes I took.” Cassie stumbles over her words, she closes her eyes sighing. She opens them to the bleak wall of the lab and she sniffles, wiping her nose on her arm. She has woken up after getting her powers, the injection was agony. She remembers vomiting and screaming and choking, she remembers the hunks of her own stomach and organs splattering on the tiled floor. She remembers landing on her knees, her hands slipping as she retches trying to support herself to avoid slipping into her own vomit. She digs her hands against the tiles ignoring the way her vomit squelches between her hands and oozes from her fingers. She shivers at the metallic slide and hiss of the door as it opened, the stomping boots as one of the agents dragged her from the room filled with part of herself she no longer needed. She’s thrown in front of the Doctor and he clicks his tongue twice.  
“Number 53 attention.” He smacks her face when she does not move. He does not click his tongue when she does what he asks. It takes her four mistakes to learn this. She’s told to fight; she ignores this as she has not learned to fear silence. A baton smashes into her face and she feels a warmth spreading around her body. She see’s her nails growing and she recognizes her body is doing what she cannot. Cassie holds her hand up flickering her nails till the grow long and pointed.

“These aren’t claws, they’re snake fangs, complete with venom. It cause a three day death, given the antidote on the first day there’s no ill effects” She remembers the Doctor screaming as her fangs break off in his skin. She’s thrown back into her own vomit but she thinks it’s worth it. Of course that though vanishes as the Doctor returns two days later dragging her out of her cell. She gets the collar clipped on. She can hear someone giving her orders but it white’s out as the collar beeps and shocks her. They make her go through the door and shock her each time she does. They leave her alone in the room; she curls against the wall farthest from the door to make sure they know she is not trying to go through it. She trains hard, they put her through combat and different shifting drills, as she grows they allow her small things in the room she lives in. They give her a stuffed mouse to comfort her. She’s not sure how old she is when they remove everything from the room and shock her till she shifts into a dog. Any shift she tries is met with more and more shocks, she whines and whimpers avoiding any movement as the agents shove her into a medium sized cage. They throw the mouse in with her. She whines and howls all night hoping someone will be annoyed enough to let her out. She shivers as the men drag her out that morning snarling to her about disturbing their sleep. She feels the first boot in her stomach but then one of them pulls out a gun and orders her to shift into her human form. She wishes there was a mirror or any kind of reflective surface, she can’t remember what she looks like anymore. She wonders if she looks the same as the men advance on her laughing. One of them has her pinned against he wall and she can see the other holding the remote up as a warning to her. She watches the man getting more and more frustrated with whatever he’s trying to tug free. The gunshot makes her scream and she clamps her hands over her mouth and freezes as she’s dropped to the ground. Jacobs standing in the doorway a gun resting on his hip, he shouts to the man with the remote and as the man hands it over to him Jacob shoots him as well. Jacob offers a hand and she curls away from it. He calls her over with a whistle and she can see the grimace on his face as she follows orders. 

She thinks how she can’t be pretty or anything close with how horrified Jacob looks. Mark screams when he see’s her. She see’s another woman sitting at a table and watches as Sarah turns to her. Before they can say anything Cassie can feel herself being yanked backwards and thrown behind the Doctor who’s screaming at both Jacob and Mark. He brings her to a different room; it looks like a fancy office, there’s carpet on the floors and Cassie moves silently on it. The man gestures to a cage and she shifts and crawls in it. He locks the door and places the remote on the desk. He brings her out to the company park, a small area of green. One of the only times she remembers being outside. He brings her back to the lab later that day. She starts endurance testing and training to hone her shifting abilities the next day. He lets her unshift at the end of the day, allowing her to rest on a cot. As the training gets more intense she’s only allowed shifting every other day, it moves to every week and then every other week. After a year or two they stop forcing her to stay shifted after training. It ends up being safer for her to stay a dog she learns this one night as she un-shifts and the door to her room opens. A man walks in and she can’t recognize him beyond the fact he works for the Doctor. The doctor watches in the door way with a grimace, he shouts at the man to not leave bruises and then vanishes. Cassie can hear him vomiting in the hall as the man drags his hands against every inch of her skin. She can feel herself choking as he digs his fingers into her thighs and uses something to bind her arms above her head. The man leaves and Cassie notices he left the door open. She can hear the bell jingling on her collar and she lies back down, she’s not sure who has the remote for it anymore. It’s safer to stay away from it anyways. The man returns almost constantly, after the first few times he brings others with him and they take turns. A few of them let the lowest setting from the collar shock her. The laugh and sneer as her body jumps under them. She keeps herself quiet and a few of them praise her, they laugh and snap at her obvious excitement at being called good. She’s scared she did something wrong when they don’t visit, but when the Doctor comes in and examines her she knows she did something wrong with how his face darkens and he looks like he’s going to be sick. He storms out of the room. No one visits her after that. The only people who visit are accompanied by the Doctor and he always hustles them out refusing to speak in front of her. She catches the word regression and rape a few times but she’s not really sure how that matters since she’s a dog most of the time. She can hear the doctor and the woman shouting at each other and she creeps close to the door to listen better. She can hear the Doctor hissing at the woman how it can’t be considered rape as she’s just a dog, a weapon, and animal not fit for any higher thinking. The woman sounds so angry Cassie worries she’s going to get hurt when she spits out how Cassie is a human and a traumatized Little. Cassie furrows her brow. Is she a little? She’s never given it much thought but she shrugs it off and returns to the bed. The Doctor had given her blanket back so she curls under it touching her forehead to mouse as she naps for the moment.

 

She’s watching the doorway her fingers playing with the buckle on the collar, she can slip them entirely under it but she pauses and rubs her finger over the latch, she scrapes herself on the metal prong as she flicks it against the other side and pulls the collar off. She stares at it in her hand and flickers the bell. A strangled sort of laugh bubbles from her throat and she stands shakily dropping the collar before she crosses the door frame as a human for the first time in years. She covers her mouth biting down laughter but she looks up as she sees an agent in the hall. She cocks her head as the agent pulls a gun. She’s in front of him in seconds the gun falls to the ground as she sinks her claws into his neck letting venom dissolve into his blood stream. She can hear the sounds of the boots and the other agents shouting. She manages to take two of them down before she wakes up strapped to the cot, the collar tight against her throat. The Doctor sits at the edge of her bed.

“You’re awake. You took out four agents; I’m very impressed, considering you’ve barely had enough to feed a three year old for the past two months. But, I’m not impressed you tried to escape. You’ve been bad number 53, such a bad bad dog. You’ll need to be punished.” He unlatches the restraints and she keeps herself frozen. He stands up and moves to the door walking through the frame and he clicks his tongue. She scrambles up shifting into her dog form stumbling through the door. The air is sucked out of her throat as the collar tightens and sends shocks into her bones.  
“ We improved the collar, it shocks you still but it will also tighten the farther you go away..” She scrambles back towards the door but a wheeze escapes and the Doctor holds out the remote.  
“It tightens the farther away from the remote you go.” He steps into the elevator and Cassie panics, she slams herself up claws scraping against the floor as she tries to crawl closer. She un-shifts and the collar loosens as she gulps in air and stumbles up and staggering towards the elevator.  
“I didn’t tell you to unshift.” Cassie grabs for his jacket.  
“P-p..” The Doctor raises an eyebrow and kicks her off him. She lands on the elevator floor and he shoves her with his foot into the corner.  
“You do not get to beg, that’s something humans do.” He clicks his tongue again and she shifts into a dog. She whines as the collar tightens a bit.  
“Oh it’s tangled. Here.” He leans down and fixes the collar flipping the tangled bit down. He strokes her head and she sits shocked at the kindness. She watches as the elevator rises, and then dings, she waits as the Doctor moves into the main room.  
“Come. Meet your new handler.” He walks her towards a group of men sitting around a table. One is sitting on the floor she moves to sit next to him. She wags her tail when he reaches his hand out to pet her.  
“Asset, no.” One of the men reaches down and smacks his hand. She doesn’t focus on what the strange men are saying but she perks up when the Doctor talks.  
“She’s good, does whatever you said, very quiet. She’s usually around two or three, we’re not sure why the serum didn’t get rid of that, it’s really a shame. But as you gentlemen know, animals don’t age like we do.” She cowers and tucks her tail under herself and the dark laughs that spew from their mouths.  
“Asset, your new attack dog, for your latest mission. We’ll brief it later.” The man sitting next to her nods and the group at the table stand up shaking hands with Doctor, as he hands them the remote. The man sitting next to her stands up and she stares wide-eyed at his metal arm. She wonders if that’s how they shock him as she can’t see a collar on him.


	9. Mission: Show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of Cassie's missions  
> TW: mentions of abuse and rape

He picks her up and carries her towards the door. She wonders how long it’s been since she’s been outside, she doesn’t realize she’s going out the front door for the first time since she was brought in when she was five. The light is too bright and she can feel warmth as her body shifts, adjusting and accommodating to match the new surroundings. One of the men shouts and she blinks, her human hands grip the Asset’s arm and she’s curled awkwardly in his arms now she’s human. He takes no notice of her change and the men don’t shock her as he places her into the car’s seat. He buckles her in and pats at her arm. She stares at him as he sits silently. She twitches her fingers towards him and he wraps his hand around hers. She falls asleep as the car moves only waking when one of the other men shocks her.

“Asset, brief the dog.” The man turns to her and as he’s about to speak another man walks up.  
“Asset quiet I’ll brief the dog, stand over there.” She waits as the Asset leaves and the man begins to detail the mission objective to her. She’s only been allowed small missions but it seems this one is an assassination of some political man who is having a dog show. The man holds a picture out to her.  
“Shift into that.” She nods and shifts into the dogs form. The man nods and points to the Asset, she trots over to him. As he clips a chain leash to her collar she realizes that the men are talking about her like she doesn’t exist and she realizes she doesn’t. She looks up as the asset huffs in disgust. She’s not sure if he’s disgusted by the thought of her ‘being a hot piece of ass’ as the men said or if he’s disgusted by what they said. She’s tugged from her train of thought as the asset leads her into the party. She’s startled to find that none of the men follow him. She wants to ask if his handlers follow later but as the party goes on she finds she can’t see any of them. He feeds her pieces of a sandwich he swiped from a tray. She doesn’t remember the handlers instructing him to do this, she’s not sure what the benefit is, but she makes sure to be as careful as possible as she takes it from his hand. They wander the show floor. Cassie sits patiently as the Asset talks about her and her parentage, many of the people who are wandering stop and ask about breeding possibilities. The asset replies that she’s too young. Cassie wonders why everyone looks so disappointed. He slowly begins moving towards the target, under the guise of talking breeding. The target welcomes them with open arms, examining Cassie in a way that makes the Asset’s scowl deepen. He corners the man in a back room, insisting he had wanted to see the studs he had available. The asset nods to her. She unshifts, tracing her claws against his jaw. The man tremors and whines at her. Begging her no to kill him.  
“You’re so terrified.. I’m not even scary like this..” 

She sinks the fangs on her hand into his neck. The asset pulls her away as the man screams and chokes on his own vomit. She shakes at the comfort of contact. He pats her head and they both stroll out of the back room and as they step closer to the waiting car and the temporary handlers Cassie wonders why she doesn’t just sprint away. She hears the jingling of the bell and can see the men tossing the remote to each other and she remembers. They don’t bring her back to the lab, she doesn’t ask why but one of the agents does it for her. The leader groans and talks much too slowly to explain how they’ve paid for a full two days and they want to get their money’s worth. She’s not sure what that means until they bring her into a room with a bed, she wonders how much they paid and if they’ll think she’s worth it. One of the men holds a picture up to her; it’s of a pretty woman with brown hair and bright red lipstick.  
“Turn into her.” Cassie shifts, it’s too easy for her and she lays on the bed unmoving.  
“Look they trained it.” Cassie stays silent but tenses when she hears screaming.  
“Just the Asset pretty thing, he screams when he’s in pain, do you?” The man flicks out a knife. She’s not sure if the man wants her to scream. She stays silent even as the knife glides though her skin.

When they return her to the Doctor he brings her to the main floor of the lab, she can dimly remember the containment units with the mirrors against the wall the large open expanse, and massive caged pen that sit on the other wall are new to her. She recognizes Jacob and Mark as they stand talking, peering into a small tank where a mouse runs in circles. The doctor is silent but the twins recognize the rage peeling off of him. They don’t say anything but follow him as he vanishes behind a door. Cassie can hear faint yelling and she makes her way over to the table realizing that the mouse is just a rat. She strokes its head giggling as it crawls over her arm. The doctor appears next to her gripping her arm tight enough to bruise. He smacks the back of her head and hisses at her about not touching the experiments but then looks up to Jacob and Mark. He snarls something out but Cassie’s ears are ringing he throws her into a containment unit and quips about her enjoying rats.


	10. Beggining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Child Abuse, Human experimentation

“The serum, all it does it increase this one specific gene, it activates it and then makes it grow uncontrollably for the next few hours. It expands the chances of mutation if there are any.” Dr. Miller leaves out any mention of the testing he put the two girls through. He knows the serum will be a success. Mutants breed mutants after all. He smiles as they bring the girls in, they cling to each other and as Mark and Jacob move to separate them they begin to cry.  
“It’s alright, its just a few shots, they can stay together for now.” He strolls forward tilting the girl’s jaws up so he can look them in the eyes.  
“You two are going to be the first and best of my experiments, I can’t wait to see what happens.” He nods and the twins’ move forward injecting both girls at the same time. The pull them apart and move them to separate containment units with two-way mirrors on each wall. It only takes a moment before the screaming begins. Sarah’s the first to start screaming, she’s wailing as her hands flail and her body jerks.  
“Just wait it out.” The twins’ nod and step back behind Mr. Miller. They turn their attention to Cassandra, who’s vomiting almost purely blood. They watch horrified as she begins to vomit clumps and more and more bright coloured bile.  
“Stay your positions.” He growls to the twins.  
“They’re dying!” Jacob shouts stepping forward.  
“This is what happened to the animals I tested on. They’ll be fine. Stay.” Mr. Miller turns to leave the room.  
“Call me back when they stop. If you two try to stop it I’ll have you both gutted.” The twins pull chairs over and sit in front of the two-way mirrors.  
“Jesus Christ, I’m glad we didn’t go through this, you think this would happen if we let it awaken naturally?” Suddenly Mark jerks forward.  
“Sarah’s gone.”  
“Gone?”  
“She fuckin’ vanished. Shit if she can turn invisible we’re so screwed.”  
“Jacob, my stomach hurts..” The turn and see Sarah standing behind them. Suddenly she vanishes form the spot and they whip around when they hear her banging on the glass.  
“Mark! Jacob help! Please!” They nod and open the door. Sarah rushes out and clings to Mark. Suddenly they both vanish and Jacob slams his fingers on the panic button.  
“What the fuck. Where did Mark and Sarah go?” Suddenly the reappear in front of Dr. Miller. His smile darkens.  
“Oh you can teleport, what a wonderful trait.” He turns his attention to Cassandra looking through the glass to find her laying on the ground, her body looks like it’s rippling and twisting, hair appears to be growing in waves and he watches as a wave of feather spreads over her back before they fall of and break into ash. He watches as scales and gills etch themselves into her skin and as they vanish. She sits up whimpering and coughs, a handful of serrated teeth land in her hand. She’s pale and shaky when Jacob brings her out.  
“Cassandra. Look at me.” She looks up and his smile turns predatory.  
“Lets see how far she can go..”  
“Sir we should wait for it to settle it hasn’t been a full hour yet and by our calculations having them test their powers can risk them developing other ones or losing the ones they have completely…”  
“More powers you say?” Mark and Jacob pale, their freckles flicker rapidly.  
“Lets see how good you are at this.” He pulls out a baton and whacks it in his hand.  
“Jacob, Mark, keep Sarah out of this. Now Cassandra. Use your power.” She looks confused at her hands but as she looks up the baton swings catching the side of her face, she cries out. Suddenly he advances on her sneering.  
“Use your power.” He smacks her again and again and he see’s her nails lengthen and sharpen, he laughs when she swipes at him and two of the nails break off into his skin. She backs up teary eyed and her lip bleeding. Dr. Miller tumbles forward onto his knees and he snarls as his body convulses on the floor.  
“What did you do?” Jacob and Mark look horrified at Cassie.  
“Just used my powers, my nails…” She points to her hand and as Jacob leans down to examine it the agents swarm the room and remove Dr. Miller.  
“Mark, holy shit, Mark look at this, her nails, she made them into snake fangs..”


	11. Beggining Pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah's start to life

Sarah huffs as Mark and Jacob fawn over number 53, it’s silly of her to be jealous, but the prickling feeling in the back of her throat and head tell her it’s not jealousy but fear, she cant help the way her heart clenches as they move Dr. Miller out of the room and down to medical. Sarah tries to remember what her parents house looks like, tries to remember their smiling faces and how much they complained about how noisy she was. She opens her eyes to find herself standing in a field; a few scraps of foundation and a stretch of a stonewall are all that’s left. She focuses on the first place she remembers opening her eyes in the lab and finds herself in a basement storage facility, she stands in front of a reflective tube. Her hand hovers over the frosted glass. She lowers it down and the ice that climbs up her body shocks her. She knows this place, this is where they’re taken if they’re bad. This is where they stay when they mess up, it gives the technicians, Jacob and Mark time to rewrite their memories. Sarah winces, she wonders how long it’s been since her house actually stood. She worries for Number 53 and hopes that she’s smart enough to avoid making mistakes and being sent down here. She reappears in the main lab and is told she’s getting a tracking device later in the week. She wonders if it’ll hurt like the shock collar that rests on number 53’s neck. The tracking device is small and fits tight around her ankle. Sarah can already feel it rubbing the skin raw. She’s brought back into the room she was changed in. She sits on the bed and watches through a suddenly appearing window she swore was a wall a second ago. She flashes herself out of the room and peers around in the lab she looks back at where the window is and sees a mirror.  
“Mirror’s wrong.”  
“What was that number 52?”  
“The mirror’s wrong, it’s a window when I’m in my room.” Jacob and Mark still.  
“It’s called a two sided mirror, it allows us to look in but you shouldn’t be able to look out, what did it look like before you changed.”  
“A wall.” Jacob nods.  
“it should still look like that if number 53 views it right?” Sarah purses her lips.  
“I don’t know I’m not her.” Mark rolls his eyes and casts a look to Jacob.  
“Sarah, sweetie, we know you’re not, we weren’t asking you, just thinking about it.”  
“Then why did you ask?”  
“Because sometimes even grown ups get confused.”  
“I’m six, I’m basically a grown-up..”  
‘Well you still have a fair bit of training and growing to do..”  
“Teach me.” Jacob and Mark shrug to each other.  
“Dr. Miller did say we were in charge of her, especially since he’s training number 53..” Jacob nods rolling his sleeves up.  
‘Sarah, can you bring me into the town, we need to get some supplies..” She nods grasping his hand and vanishing them both. They appear in a small town, a rusted neon sign hanging over the convenience store.  
“Sarah,” he starts in a warning town but it dies in his throat as he sees her tear up. “is this where you used to live?”  
“Yeahuh, I dunno when but I lived here.”  
“Oh kiddo, hey, hey, it’s okay. Dr. Miller said he found you after your house burnt down, your parents had gotten stuck inside..”  
“Yeah, he said I was cryin’ for ‘em all night when he brought me to the lab..”  
“Alrighty then, well I’m not a psychiatrist so we’ll just bottle that up for now, can you bring us to the city?”

“Okay!” She perks up at this and as they land in the middle of New York he laughs and hugs her.  
“This is amazing, your powers are incredible, you’re incredible kid!!” She laughing and smiling as Jacob drags her in and out of as many shops as they can walk to, buying school supplies and art books, as well as a very fancy looking chemistry set. He pauses in front of a toy store.  
“You want to get something for Cassandra, and yourself.”  
‘Cassandra?” Jacob coughs, straightening himself up.  
“Number 53.” He mumbles to her, she nods and darts into the toy store.  
“Sarah wait!” he stumbles forward shifting the weight of the bags to his left side. The sales assistant smiles at both of them and Sarah chirps excitedly about how she’s going to learn stuff like other people learn in school. Jacob shyly explains how she’s being homeschooled. It’s not really a lie Sarah thinks, but she still files it away as an excuse for later. Jacob returns dumping most of the bags against one of the smaller lab tables.  
“This is your desk! We’ll keep all your stuff here.” Sarah nods and begins to organize everything as Mark sits with her and helps. Jacob continues with the project that Dr. miller wants them to finish. They ignore the crying and howling from the other room. This goes on for days. It becomes a comforting routine, Each morning either Jacob or Mark will sit her down and teach her math and science, sometimes they add in English, and they both buy books for her to read. Within the first year they give her small projects to work on, it takes her another year to build a clock. Two years filled with watching the two men and reading everything they come up with has her itching to learn about DNA. They give her reports and other scientists’ papers about DNA and mutating it, she devours everything about the super soldier serum and becomes confused when Jacob explains how that’s not what they gave her.  
“We just gave you an altered genetic code, through the serum we applied, it woke and cause a specific gene to mutate within you.”  
“Can I see it?”  
“You’re almost ten, no. Maybe once you’ve gone through puberty, we can’t predict how it’ll react with your hormones changing, you could lose all your powers, or gain new ones.”  
“Doctor wants the second one right?”  
“Are you even surprised? You got a mission kiddo, he wants you to, hack into the computer system? Oh wait that’s mine, yours is, ugh, he wants you to steal another art piece, some Monet I believe..” Sarah nods and vanishes, reappearing in the cleaning and archives of the museum. She watches as the woman leaves the painting on the table, she grasps the frame and looks at the paining before returning to the lab.  
“I’m bored with paintings and museum pieces, I want to steal something exciting!”  
“Go work on the microchip disk we gave you, we need those files un-encrypted.”  
“Fine!” The missions stay the same for years. The work becomes something of a comfort for Sarah. She is sent on slightly more exciting missions, Jacob and Mark fuss over her as she returns with scrapes and bruises from rough landings. She avoids asking about Number 53, it seems she’s vanished. This is her normal for two more years. 

She’s told by both Mark and Jacob that she’ll be getting a present because it’s her birthday. She doesn’t ask which one. She knows she should be around sixteen but she recalls the two times she was frozen in the basement when she snooped too far down into the lab. Not to mention how long was needed to let the field reclaim her childhood home. She doesn’t visit it as much anymore, a man built a house over hers and lives with his girlfriend. She asks Mark one day about her age and he stutters and shakes his head.  
“Ask Jacob.”  
“He told me to ask you..”  
“Fine, you’re 17, that includes the time in the basement and the grass growth, it doesn’t take long to build a house.”  
Sarah’s sitting at her desk, writing part of an essay that Mark insists will help her understand the English classic books better when something hits the ground with a thud.  
Jacob stands behind a scrap of a woman, she lays on the ground unmoving before slowly sitting up. Her entire body is shaking and there’s a blood spatter mark on her lower jaw. Her hair hangs in her face but Sarah can see her eyes flickering trying to recognize her. Her eyes light up but as her mouth opens to speak she’s yanked backwards by the Doctor and Sarah turns busying herself in her work as Jacob gets yelled at for killing two agents. He’s shouting back about how the Doctor shouldn’t employ rapists and how number 53 shouldn’t be used as a toy. The doctor snarls back tugging the woman behind him.  
“Number 53 will be used how I please. I created her. She is mine.” She can tell whatever Jacob says next must have been the wrong thing. The doctor straightens himself and stares blankly at both Jacob and mark for a second Sarah thinks whatever had been said brought him to his remaining sense but as he practically spits at them in rage she understands it’s done the opposite, he clicks his tongue, the woman shifting into the form of a dog, as he drags her away hissing and snarling as she moves too slowly.  
“What was that about? Jacob you can’t be serious he could have killed us!” Mark’s hissing at tutting as Jacob slumps into the chair next to Sarah, she passes him a bottle of water and he drinks half of it.

“What did you say?”  
“I said, if he was going to hire rapists and pedophiles then he should just fuck her himself..”  
“Jesus that may have been a bit to far their buddy. I’m 18 now right? So it’s legal, super gross but..” Mark frowns at Jacob as Sarah turns to them.  
“Well technically you both are 18 now, but he doesn’t consider your age before the serum.. so he views both of you at around thirteen I’d guess”   
“that was number 53? She looks so, so sick..”  
“Yeah, He keeps her shifted most of the time, no idea why, I think it’s easier to deal with a dog than a person..”  
“He doesn’t consider her a person though..”  
“We know Sarah, but number 53, he keeps her down near the basement, you know the room with all the test rats..”  
“The ones that can unlock their cages?”  
“Yeah, as it turns out they kept most of their rat instincts, they eat meat, quiet often..”  
“Are you telling me she gets left down to be eaten by rats?”  
“Only when she’s bad, and by our calculations that hasn’t happened in four months. They don’t eat her, just lick at her wounds, I think they have some sort of understanding, she feeds them her food I think.. Anyways, she’s been going on what you’d deem exciting missions, she gets put on shifting duty and has had to mimic quiet a few people, she also happens to be Little.”  
“Little? Like she regresses?”  
“Yes, and-“  
“They’ve made her go on missions or not give her time to regress haven’t they?”  
“”She’s almost constantly regressed because of the trauma and they don’t notice a difference..”  
“I can’t let that happen, Jacob, Mark we have to stop it..” They nod and that night begin planning. They scrap the first five plans. Mark insists gathering the rats will give them a fighting chance. Jacob insists they need to take down the company and destroy it that way. Sarah bookmarks Jacobs idea.  
“Jacob that’s a great idea, we just need a way to take it over, god knows he won’t let us take over if he died.. he had a wife right?”  
“No, he’s never married the lonely bastard.. no kids either, trust us we’ve been running his DNA every chance we get…”  
“Well, we could always get him to sign it over to you two, all you’d have to do is grovel a little bit, I’m sure he’d eat it up..”  
“You’re like eighteen why are you so devious..”  
“First, you two raised me, and second I live in a science lab that kidnaps children to experiment on them, it’s just how I was raised.” Sarah settles into her bed for the night but she can hear crying and howls echoing through the building. Jacob has taken her tracker off for the night, a routine that had only been implemented due to Sarah’s increasingly good behavior and willingness to go on missions. In truth she was bored and just wanted to meet people. One of those missions had to be gathering intel, she’d tell herself. She looks at the bracelet that blinks on her nightstand; she closes her eyes and focuses on number 53’s face. She finds herself kneeling in front of a cage and the dog inside backs up, slamming its head against the top of the cage.  
“Shhh, shh it’s alright I want to stop this, I want you to be safe.” Sarah squeezes the dog’s paw softly and smiles as warm as she can before vanishing. She reappears at the new house that stands over her old one. She walks down the driveway and tries not to cry when her parents car isn’t in the driveway, a sleek dark blue car sits in its place. She trudges the last few steps and makes it up the porch steps slowly. She skips the third step to avoid the loose board.  
The woman that answers the door screams when she sees her. The man appears moments later looking horrified as he brings her in. Sarah can hear a bath running and she wonders how long it’s been since she’s cleaned herself using anything besides the decontamination shower in the lab. The woman moves slowly and touches her face, crying. Sarah furrows her brow as the woman moves her hair behind her ear, brushing her fingers against Sarah’s jaw. She smiles a bit and laughs; the man returns letting the woman bring Sarah into the bathroom. Sarah sits in the tub and lets the woman wash her hair. They sit her down after the bath and feed her whatever was sitting in the casserole dish in the oven. Sarah eats half of it and pushes the rest around her plate. The woman does not scold her; simply removes the plate and returns from the kitchen with a slice of cake. Sarah eats most of it and drinks two glasses of water; she stands up and moves back towards the door. The woman follows closely and Sarah stumbles forward trying to out race the woman to the front door. Her hand closes around the door handle, but the woman’s hand stops the door from opening.  
“You can stay…” the woman looks hopeful. Sarah panics shoving the woman into the hall table and struggling to open the door. She avoids looking at the family photos of her with her older sister. She stares at the woman who brushes the glass off looking at her with the same expression she had when Sarah broke her favourite doll. She vanishes, returning to the lab and away from her sister and the life she should have been part of.

“Jacob! Mark!” Sarah stumbles into their room as they sit up from their beds.  
“It’s three in the morning what are you-“ Sarah’s tugs them out of bed.  
“I know a plan!”  
“Sarah seriously, you woke us up to.. You smell like smoke, where were you?’  
“At a hydra base, I killed a few guys but I got some great information..”  
“You went and killed people? Is this what you do with your tracker off?”  
“No I went and had dinner.. and cake..” She smiles at them and they shake their heads.   
“Fine what is it?”  
“You’re not mutants. You’re like me…”  
“Sarah, we’re mutants. Dr. Miller found us when we were little, and he brought us to the lab because our parents.. oh fuck.”  
“So our parents?” Mark pales.  
“Died more than likely years ago, plus from whatever I dug up had some information about you two… Dr. Miller ‘rescued’ you two from the hydra base, they sold you, apparently you weren’t doing whatever they wanted, something about shock therapy.. but anyways, so he used you two to experiment on first, and then a few years after got me and Cassie and changed us..”  
“Where’d he get Cassie from?’  
“You guys don’t know?” They shake their heads and frown.  
“We can try to dig up her records but Doc might not take to us sneaking ‘round his pet project too well.”  
“Do it, we can use her as his weakness, you really think he’d keep forcing us to do whatever this all amounts too if he didn’t have a good enough reason. We can use her as leverage, we hurt her unless he gives us the company..”  
“He wants her hidden..”  
‘What?”  
“If word got out he had a shape shifter, no one could trust him. Anytime someone asked about anything involving him they’d assume it was the shifter.. his business would sink.”  
“So we just what, abandon her and hope she’s found by someone who has enough money to go public with her abuse?” Sarah watches Tony Stark and the Avengers on the TV Mark bought for her.  
“Perfect.”


	12. Mission Party

“Number 52, you have a mission, with 53, you two need to go to the base and then-“   
“I can read.”  
“Dr. Miller prefers it to be recorded, for safety.” Jacob smiles at her. Sarah nods and turns when the door whizzes open. Cassandra slinks in her dog form, she unshifts as her handler passes the remote to Sarah.  
‘Have fun with her. Sometimes she screams if you turn it up high enough.” The man laughs as he vanishes into the hallway.  
“Cassandra? You okay?” She fidgets and grips at her pants legs. Jacob frowns and hands her a pair of overalls to put on. As she stumbles tugging them on he rolls the legs up  
“There. Now you don’t look a bit more like a normal Little. Sarah, you know where to go for the mission?” Sarah peers up from the folder.  
“Yeah in and out of MIT, we just need to steal some student records right?” Jacob nods and Sarah grabs Cassie’s hand and they vanish. Cassie watches as Sarah hushes her, rushing them down the hallway reaching out towards the elevator.  
“Sorry, can you hold it?” The man in the elevator laughs.  
“It’s alright, what floor?”  
“Second, I think, I’m a little lost, we’re supposed to be meeting with the school’s records keeper, we’re doing a project on the alumni and we need some of the records to double check.”  
“Oh I might be able to help, I know the records keeper really well…”  
“The thing is we need the original copies..” Sarah brushes her hand behind her head looking up from her lowered head, she bats her eyelashes. The man smiles.  
“Well it depends on whose records you need.”  
“We need Mr. Starks, and Mr. Rhodes.”  
“Oh no problem, I can also get you an interview if you need it.” He winks Sarah laughs a little.  
“Just the records please.” She smiles and her and Cassie follow the man out. The person behind the desk looks a little frightened and Sarah worries if she remembers her from the library earlier in the week. The woman startles, mumbling and stuttering.  
“Mr. Stark, sir, what do you need?”  
“Stark?” Cassie frowns and Sarah’s grip tightens on her arm. Tony turns to them, crouching slightly so he’s at eye level for Cassie, she avoids his eyes. Sarah can see Tony’s eye’s flicker downwards for a moment and Sarah bites back a string of curses as the shock collar sits on her neck peeking just high enough from her shirt. The little green light blinks and Tony straightens up.  
“Well they need to see the record, specifically my records, can I just squeeze them back real quick?”  
“Of course, we don’t allow Little’s in the archive room, they tend to muck about.”  
“Oh Cassie won’t be any trouble! We’ll be in and out real quick I swear..” Sarah squirms nervously. Tony laughs pointing over to the Little area, which has massive beanbag chairs and books strewn about.  
“You can go sit over there, and read a book while we run in and grab what we need alright kiddo?”  
“Yes Sir.” Cassie nods, running off towards the book area. Sarah all but rushes in; scrambling to flip through as many of the archive records as possible.  
“Whoa slow down there, what’s got you so rushed suddenly.”  
“Cassandra’s not good on her own, she gets anxious.. I can’t… She needs me..” Tony nods slowly.  
“Sometimes it’s good for little’s to have some alone time.” Sarah pauses turning to Tony.  
“Of course Mr. Stark, sorry I just worry she’ll get into mischief, I guess it’s a good thing that she’s not back here.” Sarah smiles as Tony hands her over a stack of papers.  
“Here both me and Rhodes original records.” Sarah smiles pecking him on the cheek.  
“You’re a life saver Mr. Stark!”  
“Not a problem, now I have to go I’m about to be late to a meeting!”  
‘Oh gosh Mr. Stark. I’m so sorry!!!” Sarah looks flustered and smiles waving as she darts towards the Little reading area. It sits empty and Sarah turns towards the desk at the front.  
“Did you happen to see where Cassandra went, the Little I had with me?” Sarah tries not to panic. The woman shakes her head and Sarah rushes out. She tries to think if she said any other places they might go. Focusing she tries to envision where Cassie is. Sarah appears in a cafeteria, a handful of students sit around tables and another group lounges around a set of benches. There are a few students in line and Sarah spies Cassie, holding a man’s hand.  
“Cassandra.” Sarah watches as Cassie shrinks. The man turns around smiling.  
“Hello, you must be Sarah, Cassandra’s sister right. She was playing on one of the library computers and I asked if she was lost and she said yes, so I decided to offer my assistance to help find you, we stopped for some food first.”  
“Cassandra has food allergies, this food is probably contaminated. A very nice gesture, I appreciate the help, but I’ll be taking Cassandra back.” Sarah holds out her hand and Cassie reaches for her. The man frowns, his face darkens for a moment before he smiles.  
“Let me know if you need help any other time, Ms.?  
“Sarah, Sarah Vaun. I really do appreciate the help Mr.?”  
“Alexander, Alexander Pierce.” He smiles kissing her hand. She smiles back at him tugging her hand away as she shepard’s Cassie towards the door.  
“Mr. Pierce is bad..” Sarah freezes.  
“How?” Sarah tries not to panic when Cassie shakes her head squeezing her eyes shut.  
“He’s bad, treats dogs bad..”  
“Wait he was there when you went to that dog show? With the asset?” Sarah hisses the last bit.  
“Is that why you went with him? Cause he looked familiar?”  
“Yeah! One of the rules is I have to go say hi when I see him. Dr. Miller said it was ‘good business skills’ so I gotta do it! Same if I see the asset’s handler I’m supposed to reward him. Mr. Pierce called him Rock I think. They like using code names.” Sarah takes a deep breath pulling Cassie closer.  
“Lets get you some ice cream okay..” Cassie’s eyes widen.  
“Wait, did I do something wrong?” Sarah smooth’s down Cassie’s hair as she eats her ice cream on a bench outside the college campus. Cassie’s cuddled into Sarah’s side as Sarah reads through the files. Cassie’s halfway through her ice cream when she shifts away from Sarah’s arms and tenses.  
“I gotta go say hi, I’ll be right back..” Cassie rushes off, stumbling across the road and bumping into a man whose reclining at an alley entrance.  
“Cassandra!” Sarah shouts as she charges after her. The man looks startled but smirks.  
“Well hello there little one, get lost?” his teeth shine against the grime of the alley.  
“Hey!” Sarah pulls Cassie back stepping as close to the man as she can.  
“You stay the fuck away from her. You don’t come near her again.”  
“She came to me.” Sarah hisses in frustration vanishing and reappearing in the labs main room. She thrusts the records towards Jacob and Mark, dragging Cassie towards one of the office rooms. She settles Cassie on her lap, as they rock slightly in an office chair.  
“Sarah, are you mad at me?”  
“No Cass, I’m mad at Dr. Miller, he shouldn’t have told you to do any of that stuff. It’s not nice.” Cassie nods staring up at Sarah. She sniffles slightly.  
“Hey it’s okay, I’m not mad at you, shhhh, come here. It’s all right, I’m just upset that these things happened to you, I should be doing a better job taking care of you. Shhh, it’s alright Cass, it’s okay…” Cassie nods curling smaller in Sarah’s lap crying quietly. Sarah holds her rocking them gently as Cassie falls asleep.  
-“Number 52, I was told you didn’t allow Number 53 time to say hello to Mr. Brock Rumlow; instead of punishing both of you I’ve set up a meeting for them. It’ll be later tomorrow evening, he’ll be bringing her to some dinner party. So I want you to keep a bit of an eye on them.” Dr. Miller laughs and pats Sarah on the head. Sarah tries not to panic as both her and Cassie are given fancy dresses to wear. Cassie squirms in hers.  
“Did he say he wanted her big or?” Jacob looks uncomfortably toward Dr. Miller.  
“He said either is fine, he has a preference for Little’s but whichever she is, is fine to him.” Jacob nods.  
“Oh, take the collar off, it’s unsightly.” Jacob nods unclipping her collar and casting a look to Mark who helps Sarah zip her dress up.  
“There now you two have fun, don’t stay out too late okay! You need anything call us,” Mark smiles, but leans close to Sarah.  
‘He goes out of your line of sight you press this okay, it’ll track her, sent straight to your phone.” Sarah nods kissing Mark on the cheek.  
“Thank you.” He nods and they depart. Dr. Miller walking them to the door. Brock stands smirking, it drops slightly.  
“What is she doing here, sir?”  
“She’s my insurance, that you wont run off with my pet. It would be a shame to send her after you..”  
“All she can to is teleport not much of a threat.” His smirk returns and darkens. Dr. Miller leans in close.  
“I would not test her. She can teleport you so they’ll never find your body.” Brock rolls his eyes and smiles softly.  
‘Well don’t you just look like a doll, pretty little girl.” He purrs at Cassie as she stands still. Sarah can see her hands shaking as he takes it, walking her to the car. Sarah sticks close to them as they leave the lab, and start on their way to the party. Sarah winces when Cassie switches over to being big halfway through the car ride. She tries to alert Brock but he shrugs off her concerns.  
“It’ll be way easier to introduce her as my date instead of guest.. She ends up little again just a problem for her.”  
“Brock I don’t think you understand how she acts when she’s-“  
“Shut it, we’re at this party because you messed up, you mess up again and this’ll just keep happening till he sends someone else with me an’ her.” Sarah quiets looking to Cassie who glares at brock.  
“Oh come on now baby, don’t be like that.” Brock holds his hand out for Cassie and as she takes it Sarah winces when she hears his finger snap.  
“Don’t be such an asshole, sir.” She smiles as him and starts to walk with Sarah into the party. Brock jogs catching up with them and pushing himself in between them.  
“Come now ladies, lets be civil.” He hisses to them as they enter the party’s main door. Sarah meanders off but Brock can feel her glaring as he parade’s Cassie around introducing her to everyone. She smiles shyly and few of the men laugh and snicker as Brock jokes about her only making noise in bed. He turns after another snide comment to find her shy expression has vanished and is replaced by a similar glare to the one from the car. He rubs his swollen finger and winces as it snags against his hand.  
“Brock dear, a word.”  
“Not right now sweetie, I’m busy talking to my business partners, you can go off and get us some drinks right?”  
“Of course, your usual?”  
“Yes, whiskey on-“  
“I know.” She turns and makes her way to the bar. Sarah meets her mumbling if she’s okay and to let her know if she needs anything. Cassie nods offering out a drink.  
“Mr. Rumlow said he’d pay for everything, oh sir, since this is a charity ball, where can I make a donation, in the name of my date, I want to surprise him…” the barman points her over to a small table and she smiles turning and asking Sarah if she’ll bring over the drinks.   
“Oh thank you- Sarah?”  
“Cassandra wanted to surprise you, she’s making a donation in your name.” Sarah smiles smugly. Brock frowns excusing himself from the group and rushing over to the donation’s table.  
“Cassandra, darling, what on earth are you doing?”  
“Well I know how much you love supporting these types of charities, you’re just too shy to let everyone know.” She returns the credit card he handed over to her.  
“There, all done.”  
“How much did you donate.”  
“Well they told me that a silver card account, which is what you have has a 500k max per month, so I just donated that. Oh! They have little sanwhiches, you want one?” She makes her way to the food table leaving brock to nurse his drink and broken finger. He returns Cassie and Sarah back to the lab an hour later.  
“A bit early aren’t we?”  
“Sarah drank too much she kept trying to teleport places.”  
“And Cassie?”  
“A good girl as usual, I’d love to take her out again, as fun as this night was I’d like something more personal.” Dr. Miller suppresses a shudder but nods.


	13. Mouse and Asset

Steve feels comfortable enough to leave Cassie sitting in the living room for a moment as he riffles around the kitchen looking for peanut butter. He can hear her shifting around from under the blanket but he hears her breath hitch and winces in sympathy. She had been doing okay, but Tony left the news playing and something about the story they were running had caused her to have a panic attack. Steve scoops a spoonful of peanut butter into a bowl returning to the living room in time to see Cassie clawing at her arms, letting her nails dig into her shoulder before wrenching them down her arms, She whimpers and snarls to herself before Steve can see her grasp her mouse and she lets out a panicked sob as she wrenches his head off. She’s whining as her breathing hitches more.  
_Useless, why on earth are you still here all you do is mess up and make mistakes look how much of a problem you are, just a mess just a freak just a useless little girl, you still need everyone to do everything for you why don’t you just grow up and act like a real person you’re so useless it’s a surprise anyone wants you at all, so whiny and needy just a waste of space just a useless little thing that can’t read right or cant listen to directions always needing someone to hold your hand _  
Cassie wails, and screams, She’s clinging to a pillow tears coursing down her face and every so often she pauses her jerking sobs; her breath hitching and causing her to cough and gag as her lungs battle against breathing in.__

____

“What happened, Jesus Christ, did she get triggered by something again?  
“The only thing that was going on was Winnie the pooh, Wanda’s playing with blocks and, oh no..” Steve’s eyes fall on Cassie’s mouse, the head halfway across the room, the small body clutched in her hands.  
“Oh crap. Nat, you have that sewing kit?” Clint scoots closer grasping the head and picking it up quick enough Cassie doesn’t see him. She’s not screaming sobs anymore, and her wails have subsided to whimpers, her hands tremble, alternating between shaking and gripping the mouse so tight they’re scared she’ll rip it more. Her breath hitches again and she wipes her eyes looking down at the little body whimpering as more tears splatter the blanket she’s tucked under. Her lip trembles as she licks it, she looks up as Clint hands her the head, she gently touches them together letting a quiet cry which then turns to another round of sobs. It takes everyone a moment to realize she’s crying for someone.  
“Cassie, who do you want, is it Sarah, or Mark?”  
“Asset.”  
‘Asset?” She nods sniffling holding up the mouse parts squishing them together.  
“Asset’ll fix him.”  
“Auntie Nat can fix him for you. We don’t know who Asset is sweetie. She’ll have him all fixed up in a second. You wont even see the stitches..”  
“Nu-uh..” She trails off clutching the mouse closer. Steve sighs, inching his hand closer to the mouse.  
“He has to be fixed, we can even give him a little bath if he needs.” Cassie shakes her head tucking the mouse under her chin as she curls around it. Bruce walks in trailed by Bucky and Sam.  
“Oh no! Is mouse hurt? We have to go do surgery on him! We’ll have to get him to medical!” Bruce nudges her in hope to get her to play along. She frowns shaking her head, trying to snarl at him. It looks like a grimace. Steve shakes his head.  
‘Alright, we wont go near mouse, but he wont be able to play with you until he-“ Steve trails off as Bucky holds out his hand, the mouse is placed in it, and he pulls the sewing kit closer as he stitches the head back on slowly. The mouse is set back down into her lap and Cassie hugs it, as well as looping her arms around Bucky’s hand tugging it closer and pressing her cheek against it.  
“All better then? See that wasn’t so bad, now he can play more.” Bucky pats her head and Steve frowns.  
“She knew you?”  
“huh?” Bucky turns to Steve  
“She called you Asset.” Bucky tenses.  
“I’d rather not talk about that in front of-“  
“He took me to a dog show it was real fancy! I even got to eat tiny sanwhiches!!!” She smiles at both of them and Bucky nods.  
“Yeah it was a little weird, her being a dog and all-“  
“And the handlers!”  
“Cassie.” Bucky frowns an edge to his voice.  
“Let her talk about it if she wants too. Do you want to Cassie?”  
“Dunno, it’s in my head right now and if I forget I might not ‘member it ever again.. so I should talk ‘bout it but I know it ain’t good for Uncle Bucky to hear it, cause he wasn’t there.. He was screaming a lot..”  
“They wiped me after that mission, one of the handlers saw me feeding her, they took me to my usual room but they took her to the med bay..”  
“Were you injured?”  
“No, Mr. Rumlow said it was the only place with a bed.”


	14. Runaway

Cassie wakes up screaming and Bruce is the first one into her room. He’s expecting her to cower like she normally does but is startled to find her bearing her teeth and snapping at him. He moves quickly to the side of the bed trying to calm her like he usually does. He grunts as the knife juts out of his arm. Cassie looks at him, her eyes clouded slightly as she darts out of the room. Bruce wakes the rest of the team as he sits in the lab letting Tony stitch him up. Steve rakes his hands through his hair as Tony asks Friday to scan the tower for Cassie.  
“Unable to find any heat signature or DNA profile of Ms. Cassandra.”  
“Pull up footage of all the exits on the first floor, and the elevators. Scan for her face.”  
“Scan for Sarah’s face as well, she might have taken her..” Friday blinks and one of the monitors lights up showing Cassie running out into the main street from the side door of the tower, and two men standing staring at her. They stand tall and willowy, freckles covering their face and exposed legs. The freckles light up, speckling the men in yellows and greens for seconds before they return to skin colour. The two men lean down, talking to Cassie and she shakes her head and looks back to the tower, and points towards it. The men shake their heads and stand back up, offering their hands out. Cassie backs up and darts down a side street and the men turn away and walk the opposite way.  
“Wait is that Mark and Jacob?”  
“You know them?” Steve stares at Clint.  
“Yeah they work in a genetics lab, they wanted to sequence my DNA because of my eyesight, even before my hearing issues, it was always abnormal. They’re really great guys, the lab they work at is top notch.”  
“What lab?”  
“Miller and Braun Industries.” Steve nods and the team arrange to go and meet and tour the lab the next day. Bucky and Natasha both decide to skip the tour in favour of looking for Cassie immediately. They both return at around five am looking exhausted and miserable, they shake their heads flopping down on the couch and letting Steve drapes a blanket around each of them. Pietro hangs back, explaining to Wanda how tired Natasha is and how they’ll have to be extra quiet as they make breakfast.

“Clint! Are you back for more tests? We don’t have anything new we can run on.. oh my god is that the Super soldier serum!!” One of the men runs up and hovers his hand over Steve’s arm.  
“I’ve never thought I’d live to see this, oh wow, feel the heat it’s giving off it must be-“  
“Steve rogers. Not a serum.”  
“Of course, sorry sir.” Jacob winces.  
“Cassie is-“  
“Dead. We’re sorry to hear about that, except our condolences, were you close?’  
“We need your help and-“  
“Yes of course, come this way.. Sarah! Go get us coffee we have guests, make four pots!” they see the back of Sarah as she vanishes from the room. Jacob and Mark both gesture to the seating, Sarah brings in coffee moments later and Jacob and Mark throw it against the wall.  
“Now look at that mess, we have to go out for coffee, come on, we’ll pay.” The two men sheapard the team out, as they leave the lab their skin flickers different colours.  
“Sorry our walls have ears, lots of ears, Cassie’s gone; we ran into her- of course you know that, we went home after that, didn’t want to risk her following us.. She looked disorientated, and-“  
“Jacob! Mark, what on earth are you doing with the Avengers!” The two men pale, freckles flickering black and blue. As they turn backing against the table the Avengers are seated at.

“Dr. Miller! We’re sorry sir, we were looking for Sarah, she ruined our morning coffee and then vanished..”  
‘I sent her on a mission, much more important that your coffee, why it’s covering the wall is another matter. Now, tell me what on earth are you doing sitting at a table with The Avengers, surely they didn’t want to talk to you?”  
“I invited them, Dr. Miller, I wanted to set up a tour of your lab, if that’s alright with you, I’m interested in the genetics of little’s and how it can differ with mutants, to non-mutants..” Bruce stands up holding his hand out. Dr. Miller pushes his glasses up and smiles.  
“I would love to give you a tour Dr. Banner, may I suggest tomorrow at around four pm? You can bring anyone else you’d like of course..” Tony shivers as Dr. Miller looks towards them. He runs a hand through his graying black curls and smiles at the group.  
“I have to go now, but I’m sure Jacob and Mark will be able to help, I’m very glad they decided to stop, I’ve been dying to pick your mind about all of the research you’ve done.” He waves goodbye and the group turn to Bruce.  
“Your welcome, Jacob, Mark will you to be okay? Are you all-“  
“Holy fuck that makes so much more sense now, she stabbed you didn’t she..” They stare at Bruce’s arm that has a bandage peeking from his sleeve.  
“What? Yeah Cassie panicked cause of a nightmare, that’s why she left..”  
“No she left cause she didn’t hear the bell.”  
“The bell on her collar?” Steve turns to the twins. They nod.  
“She was confused, she thought she was back in the lab right?”  
“Yeah, I’m surprised she didn’t use her fangs… that’s usually her foolproof…” The twins study Banner for a moment before looking and nodding to themselves.  
“Of course, why on earth would she do it a second time, she probably thought he’d kill her..”  
“Wait she thought I was Dr. Miller?”  
“Well of course, you two look alike, no wonder she ran off she was terrified.. oh god, we never got rid of that safe house did we?”  
“It wasn’t ours to get rid of..” Mark hisses at Jacob and the two stand; freckles flashing orange and blue as the stumble towards the door. They turn to the Avengers.

“Last we used it, it was a hydra safehouse..” Steve stands up and follows them, Bruce and Clint are seconds behind. The base is quiet when they get to it, the door is locked, no sign of tampering, and as Jacob inputs a code the lock clicks open. They can hear the very faint sniffling and start forward.  
‘So the freckles?”  
‘We’re mutants, mantis shrimp DNA to be specific..” Bruce nods scooting closer and mumbling quiet questions to them.  
“Come on kid, it ain’t that hard. How on earth did they used to get her to quit crying..” the voice floats forward.  
‘does it really matter she’s cryin’ ?she killed ‘im right? I don’t think his team or anyone will come after her. Nor will the Avengers, they don’t know where she ran off to..”  
“Oh really.” Steve steps forward and the two men startle. Cassie looks up and shakes her head frantically. The two men snicker and step forward.  
“Boss is gonna be real mad we didn’t leave this one for him.”  
“He’ll get over it when we bring her back right? Cassandra will be a good dog right? Be nice and do what we ask, you’ll be free of that lab and Dr. Miller. Look.” One of the men points to Bruce.  
“Look it’s Dr. Miller, don’t you want to kill him for what he did to you?” One of them slinks back drumming his fingers against her shoulder.  
“Be a good dog Cassandra, do what we ask of you. You wouldn’t want Dr. Miller to bring you back to the lab would you?” They can hear her whimper as she shakes, Bruce steps forward.  
“Cassie, remember me? It’s Bruce. Remember? I know you didn’t mean to stab me, you thought I was the doctor. It’s okay I’m not mad sweetie. We just want you to come home is all.” Cassie shakes her head, hands scraping at her ears.  
“Hurts.”  
“That’ll be the wipe working, glad to know that old chair does what it’s told.”  
“You shocked her?”  
“No different than the collar she wears, just straight to her brain this time, fractured a good chunk of her memories. She’s convinced Banner is the good Doctor.”  
“He’s my papa.” She furrows her brow.  
“Yes good! Bruce is your daddy!” Steve encourages her she nods stumbling forward, the men frown.  
“No he’s the doctor!’ They shout and she winces clutching her head whining. She stumbles forward landing on her knees and looking around the base. Steve can see the moment she registers the door is still open.   
“No!” She darts between his legs and into the city. The two men groan and Steve turns to them smirking.  
“Well since there are no children present I don’t mind beating the shit out of you two. Tell your ‘boss’ about it.”


	15. Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter for now, upcoming chapter has major TW for rape and abuse

“Shit, the hell she run off too? How the hell are we going to find her in the- Hey Sarah what’s wrong?”  
“She’s back.”  
“Cassie’s in the lab?”  
“Yeah but Dr. Miller has it on lockdown, you’ll only be able to get in through the tour you guys have scheduled.”  
“Shouldn’t he keep it on lockdown for at least a few days?” Clint looks confused.  
“Habits are hard to break.. especially when they’re formed through pain. It won’t take him more than a few hours.”  
Steve makes everyone wear full gear, they apologize saying how they’d been on a mission but were dying to see Dr. Millers research. Dr. Miller preens at this bringing them to the main room of the lab.  
“You’ve already met Sarah, such a sweet girl, her mother was my company partner, but she died due to a heart attack so I took Sarah in when she was only a few months old. The twins, Mark and Jacob I adopted after a hydra trafficking ring was found. They both have Mantis shrimp DNA fused into their cells, now the most interesting thing about Sarah and the Twins DNA is how it mutates. Well how the cells grew, I have a few slides here, and some preserved specimens. Just an appendix and a few other cysts and such that had to be removed for safety, you can see how they look perfectly normal and functioning, but when put under the- Hey!” Miller turns as Steve peers through a window looking into a cell.  
“I’ll show you Number 53 in a minute, she’s not herself yet.” Steve nods backing up and turning his attention back towards the microscopes the Doctor has lying out. Bruce ventures a question asking about the difference between Mutant and Non-Mutant Little’s.  
“Well there doesn’t appear to be many differences that I’ve observed, besides the fact mutant Little’s tend to be more prove to ‘mixed drops’ and memory issues.”  
“Mixed drops?”  
“Its something I’ve noted in quiet a few Little’s, mainly due to trauma received when they’ve dropped or not, a repeated trauma blurs the line between dropping so to speak and-“  
“So you’re saying that the Little is never truly not regressed?”  
“Somewhat, but they never fully regress either, they may have moments of it, but they retain their ‘adult brain’ so to speak. Very dangerous. It’s why I don’t let number 53 out of my sight.”  
“Wait so you’re saying that a mutant little prone to ‘mixed drops’ is always regressed, so how on earth can they give any kind of consent? Anything you did to them would be read as a crime or abuse..” Clint glares as Dr. Miller.  
“No, because they’re always not regressed, they can always consent.”  
“That’s not possible. You’re just saying that to justify all the trauma you put her through.”  
“Nonsense, she really does have odd moments of acting like a human adult even though she’s fully regressed.”  
“Of course she does, you’ve traumatized her so much it’s her way of trying to cope with it.”  
“I assure you, I’ve hardly touched her since the whole experimentation began.”  
“Is that how you justify using Number 53 like an attack dog.”  
“She is an attack dog, her look at her DNA, its fundamentally indistingushable from a dogs, even in human form a DNA sample would always read contaminated. She’s not really a person, not anymore.” He smiles sadly and shakes his head.  
“I can give you some of her mission reports. They’re a bit dark, to say the least, but they provide fantastic insight to the mind of a mutant Little..” Steve’s grasping the files and opening them the minute they flash into his field of vision.


	16. Dog Show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Rape and violence

“That one is one of her later missions, to a dog show, she was wonderful, although the men who were her handlers less so.” He gives a disgusted huff. Steve’s breath hitches as he stares at a laminated photograph tucked into a massive de-brief file. He tears his eyes away from Cassie’s bruised body ignoring the way her spine sticks out and her ribs concave in a way that make him sick to his stomach. The photo is in full colour and Steve wishes that it wasn’t. The bruises covering her range from deep purple to a yellow green. Steve’s not sure which is worse the multitude of colours or how most of them are around her pelvic area and down her thighs, there’s a rope of them against her neck that drape in a covering of her shoulders. One of her wrists sits at an odd angle and the skin against her wrists and ankles is rubbed raw enough to drip blood. Which is halfway to the floor in the photo. He pries his eyes away from it and starts to read.  
_Mission 34-5: Handlers: Evan Selridge, Mark Coeffer, Brock Rumlow_

_Agents from hydra have always used number 53 but this mission required her to work with their most famous Asset. Although it was originally a worry number 53 would avoid and fear the Asset she seemed please to be able to be on the mission. She was briefed and told to act accordingly to the breed specifications of the dog they needed for the dog show. The dog show was a ruse for [redacted] to gather more information and breed better attack dogs. The hydra agents wished to fully commit the to missions cover but I forbade it. As I myself am unsure the results of such a venture. Below is the full mission taken from the Hydra agents.  
Number 53 shows preference for being in a human form but that is easily remedied with a few minor shocks. It was well behaved enough where we never needed to turn the dial past four. The Asset seems to have taken a liking to it as well. Stroking its fur and feeding it food from the trays. While in the dog show itself Number 53 was a wonderfully behaved creature. It took wonderful direction making sure to stay dumb enough where no one suspected anything other than the breed’s marked intelligence. We left the Asset and Number 53 to finish the mission on their own. The Asset showed marked improvement in coercion of the target, using Number 53 to lure him to the back. Where Number 53 easily disposed of him using the venom it’s mutation allows it to produce. We’ve extracted some to save for future poisonings as well as to make an antidote out of for safekeeping. As the target was eliminated we were able to enjoy some of the party before returning to the lab. The Asset was found to have snuck food and dog biscuits from the party, he was swiftly punished. We were unsure if we should wipe him at first so we allowed him to follow us as we brought Number 53 to the med bay as it is the only room with a bed, he was useful in holding number 53 down on the bed as we restrained it so it couldn’t get away. A few low dose shocks had it quiet down and made it easy to handle. Evan went first and stopped halfway through seemingly disgusted by the fact it was a dog a few hours ago. Mark had no such objections and brought out a knife. Evan removed the Asset and brought him to Mission brief and to be wiped. Number 53 does not like the sounds of screams. It tensed and struggled to do what we can assume was trying to rescue the Asset. Mark enjoyed the knife, it did not scream until Mark became visibly frustrated and used the handle of the knife to hit around its hips. Number 53 screams for a moment and then seemed to realize Mark enjoyed it, overdoing the screams to the point it started to lose it’s voice. Evans returned to the room as Mark finished and was offered another go. He refused the sex again but did take part in holding it down when Mark suggest we see if it’d run away if we took the restraints off. Number 53 did not run away or move, it made no sound when Mark added weights onto it’s shoulder. Both Mark and Evan restrained it again, removing the weights and leaving it alone with me. I was surprised with how less fearful it looked. It was shaking and whimpering as much as it tried not to. I told it to hush feigning comforting words and gave it a few forehead kisses, loosing the restraints so its wrist were not further injured. It slipped one of them out to touch my face; I snapped the wrist before tucking it into the restraint and tightening it more. I glanced over to the remote and turned it off, showing Number 53 it was in no danger of being shocked. It relaxed; I asked it to spread its legs and it easily complied. There were only a few small bruises forming, gripping its thighs I pulled it closer to me, letting its arms hang slightly above it as it struggled. I watched for a few moments debating getting a knife, I simply unbuckled my belt and climbed on top of it. It was easy enough to enter; unsure if it enjoys this or it was simply bleeding too much. After the first time it tried to squirm away, tightening the restraint around its broken wrist is enough to keep it from moving too much. Evan decides he wants a turn and I refuse to leave, Number 53 seems unbothered by this and Evan shrugs it off. The bruises darken on its hips and his hands wind up to the throat. I warn him against it possibly passing out. He removes his hands digging them into the flesh on the thighs leaved knuckle dark bruises. It cries again and Evan is put off finishing quickly and scowling smacking it in the head and digging his hand into the bruises on its shoulders as he scolds it for making noise. I dismiss him again stroking its cheek comfortingly mumble apologies and sweet words; it tries to lift up its head to bump my hand. I undo the restraints and it doesn’t move for a moment, it then wraps its arms around my neck and I hold it for a moment before resting it against the storage cabinets. Its whines when I fuck it against them. I return it back to the bed and don’t strap it in. I tell it to sleep. It screams throughout the night. We shock it in the morning before it goes back to the lab. _


	17. Resurrection

Steve looks up from his reading to notice everyone looking at him. He sighs through his nose and uncurls his hand from the table that he’s molded to fit his fingers.  
‘Anyways, would you like to see her fighting, she’s a very good dog, she listens very well.” Steve sighs; he’s debating just knocking Dr. Miller out, grabbing Cassie, the twins and then blowing the lab and making a run for it.  
“Steve, how are we going to deal with this? We can’t just grab and go.. It’ll have to be planned.” Clint leans over eyebrow raised as Steve droops slightly.  
“Oh, I didn’t realize there was a tour on, should I make coffee?” Sarah appears holding a stack of files.  
“Oh good, you got them, not right now dear, you can help by bringing out number 53, they want to see her fighting..”  
“Of course, sir. Anything else?”  
“Is my half four appointment here yet?”  
“Yes sir, he’s in the waiting room, shall I bring him in?”  
“After the demonstration.” Dr. Miller nods and they watch as one of the walls slide open, a dog creeps out stumbling at the door and pausing after crossing the threshold.  
“Number 53, I have some people who are interested in you, shift and demonstrate your fighting abilities, Jacob, can you bring in Ophelia.” Jacob scurries off and Cassie shifts ignoring the group completely. Jacob returns carrying a mannequin under his arm.  
“This is Ophelia, a fighting dummy, I’ve made a few adjustment. Please name someone you’d want her to fight.” The group remains quiet; Dr. Miller nods, typing something into the small keyboard pad on the back of the dummy’s head. The dummy jerks upwards and stands still, and a faint blue light covers it. Muscle and hair seem to grow from nothing, skin stretching over the limbs, as it flexes its hand. The figure looks up and Cassie jumps back a little as Brock Rumlow stands, unburned and appearing to be alive.  
“Similar to a Life Model decoy, but able to be programmed into anyone. Now, Number 53, fight.” Dr. Miller nods and the team watch as Cassie sighs, walking up to the dummy and grabbing his hand, they stand just holding hands for a moment, but the dummy snakes his other hand around to her side and she tenses. She eyes the dummy uncomfortably before tugging her arm across herself and flipping him over to his back. She pulls a knife and stabs into his arm tracing down from his shoulder to his fingers. The dummy doesn’t bleed but Steve watches as Cassie flinches back to avoid it anyways.

 

“Very fast, she can also take it slow though, if needed. But I won’t show you that, most people can get upset by it.” He smiles warmly at the group.  
“You mean women right?” Natasha rolls her eyes at him.  
“No, I just mean people who’ve seen an awful lot of blood and guts, probably don’t want to watch a torture scene.”  
“Dr. Miller, with all do respect, we haven’t gotten much of a tour.” Bruce prompts smiling hopefully.  
“Ahh, itching to see where I work then, follow me.” He waves them towards an elevator.  
“53 come.” Cassie walks to his side jogging slightly to keep up. Steve’s directly behind them, trying to brush his hand against Cassie’s so she knows they’re here to help. Natasha sticks with Clint, and Bruce is directly next to Dr. Miller firing questions and answering some in return. Clint mumbles something to Natasha and she nods at him to continue.  
“I just think this would be better with Tony here, it’d be a snap to get Cass back into our hands, well more like a check cashed but same difference.”  
“Clint, we can’t just buy her, no telling what she’d think of us then.”  
“You gotta admit we’d have an easier time of it, we’ve had easier rescue missions anyways..”  
“Sorry Sir I tried I swear I-“ Sarah pauses waving her hands at the group frowning.  
“He’s in the lab isn’t he?”  
“Yes sir, he insisted on being part of the tour, something about being most of your funding..” Dr. Miller shoots her a warning glare as they make their way into his main lab. Cassie cowers behind Dr. Miller as the figure turns towards them.  
Brock stills as he sees Steve and the rest of the group.  
"Well, well, well, didn’t know the Captain was such a big science fan." He smirks and sneers when Steve takes a half step back.  
"Another dummy?"  
"No the real deal this time. Miller, you owe me again, Sarah mucked up the charity ball, you remember that, my finger got broken. I want a repayment.."   
"I'm not funding your death squad."  
"I didn’t expect you too.. I want her, again." Dr. Miller shakes his head.  
"No, I just got her back from her little jaunt around town I’m not letting her back out until I know she won’t escape."  
"Unlike the creatures you employ here I actually look after my toys.. Give her to me.." Brock sneers holding up an envelope.  
"What’s in there, a restraining order; I hope?”  
"Not entirely, Cassie dear, come read this, you’ll love it." Cassie scrambles over toward Brock and grasps the paper tightly; he ruffles her hair and nods to her.

"The DNA test revivals, reveals that subject A and B are familiialer," she pauses looking up to Brock.  
"Familial DNA sweetie.."  
"Familial DNA up to a 97% chance of retaliation.."  
"Relation."  
"And as we know, familial DNA consists of parents, siblings, sometimes aunt and uncles but most common are the first two, you want to explain why those two DNA samples match almost perfectly.. There’s something you ain't telling Sarah and Cassie, isn’t there..." Dr. Miller scoffs and shakes his head.  
"Nothing both of them need to know." Brock smirks.  
"Come on doctor, how long are you going to play this, your creatures know the truth. They know what happened to Braun, to Sarah’s mom.. They know what happened with Cassie, they know about the company rules. Even the Avengers know, why on earth do you think they came to this tour?”  
Dr. Miller laughs.  
"You know nothing about Number 53, I made sure to destroy all evidence of that. You have nothing on me for Braun’s death either.." Brock's smile falters as he drops the paper, as it flutters to the floor Dr. Miller smirks picking it up and sneering at the hand written information.  
"If your going to plan a takeover, do it better.”  
"They did. Although I admit Rumlow is as much of a surprise to us as he is to you." Tony smirks standing behind Dr. Miller with a beam aimed at his back.  
"Be a good fuck up and on your knees." Cassie whines in the back of her throat.  
"Kid its okay he wont hurt you anymore.."  
"Doesn’t hurt me, gets other people to.."  
"He wont keep you here, you can go home with us, for good..."  
Cassie whines again as Sarah appears.  
“Cassie it’s okay, we can go with the Avengers, with Mark and Jacob if you want.. We can be a family. Remember, like how we used to talk about?”  
“Uh-huh. Dr. Miller said I ain’t allowed to talk ‘bout that no more..”  
“Cassie sweetheart it’s alright he wont hurt you.” Tony has him handcuff kneeling on the floor.  
“Did I miss the monologue of him revealing all of you guy’s tragic past or are we all just as confused?”


	18. Flipping a Switch

“Well. Jacob and I, we were orphans, he bought us from hydra, we were failed lab grown children of theirs, I believe. We were brought here and injected with the mantis shrimp DNA, causing us to grow and develop like this. Sarah, her mother was Millers lab partner and ex-wife, they were the ones to create us, and Dr. Miller ordered us to inject the serum into Dr. Braun, it didn’t work, she died hours later. She was too old. We learned from her. Her husband didn’t have any of the markers, but her daughter, she had all the markers of the gene’s we had, Dr. Miller knew it would work… He showed up with her one day, and Cassie as well, said he got them from the orphanage and that there was a fire that killed the Braun’s so we didn’t have to worry about the bodies. We injected them and this happened. We didn’t want to, but we thought it was for the best. He would have killed them otherwise…”  
“Does anyone know about Cassie though, do we know the orphanage at all, is there any way to trace her?”  
“You can’t trace Number 53 her DNA is mutated to be untraceable. She has no family because no one has DNA like her.”  
“Someone has to, and I bet you have some record somewhere.” Tony sneers at him. Natasha’s sitting at his computer as Jacob explain the file system to her. Dr. Miller snarls and stands up, whacking Tony in the jaw, he rushes towards the elevator. The doors close before Tony can get to him.  
“So now what?”  
“Well we should take care of Brock right? He is supposed to be dead. He locked the elevator so it’s not moving at all.”  
Brock puts his hands up in surrender and scratches as his chin. The team stare as he appears to pull his face off. Mark smiles back at them holding the electronic mask back to Clint.  
“Thanks for that, it’s a lifesaver.” Clint nods laughing but it’s cut short as a figure stumbles back from the elevator. 

The man that crumbles towards them is pale and willowy, he seems to have barely any muscle on his frame but he pants slightly his face red from exhaustion. He looks around at them his eyes landing on Cassie.  
“Cassie is that really you? Sweetheart, it’s me, it’s Daddy.. Remember, your family?” Everyone is frozen. He pulls himself up and sighs swaying slightly he squeezes his eyes shut.  
“Cassandra, come on. You remember me, I know it’s been a while, but you know me.. I took care of you for so long sweetie..”  
“Cassie, don’t go near him, we don’t know who he is.” Bruce pulls her back towards his chest.  
“And who are you to tell me to stay away from my daughter.”  
“Someone who’s been taking care of her for months, how long did you take care of her a few days?”  
“You don’t look like me?” She shape shifts herself to match the man’s features, he recoils.  
“You have powers?” He stares at her in awe before he shutters away his emotions.  
“How have you been surviving for all these years?” His eyes flicker to the Avengers.  
“The- ‘Vengers take care of me, they like me.”  
“Oh sweetheart, you poor child. They’re using you. Can’t you see it? The same as Sarah and Mark and Jacob, all those nasty men who touched you and called you a good girl. It was just to use your powers. That’s all they think you’re good for.. Sweetie, I’m sorry but I can’t take you back anyways..”  
“She’s your daughter, your own flesh and blood. What do you mean no?”  
“I can’t take her back like that, after all those people, all those things happened to her, it’s disgusting. I can’t even look at her knowing that happened..” Cassie stares wide-eyed at his figure. She bites down on her lip and squares her shoulder.  
“You let it happen.. YOU SOLD ME TO THEM. YOU TOOK AWAY EVERYTHING, WHY? YOU SOLD ME, ABANDONED ME TO THIS MONSTER. I DON’T CARE YOU DON’T WANT TO LOOK AT ME I’M GLAD, I WOUDLNT WANT YOUR GAZE JUST LIKE I NEVER WANTED THEIR HANDS ON ME. I DIDN’T WANT THIS WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU ALLOW THIS, YOU KNEW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN, AND YOU LEFT ME BEHIND THAT GODDAMN MIRROR ANYWAYS.”  
“Cassandra, my dear, look at what you’ve become, you can change yourself into anything you desire, you can re-write your DNA into the cosmo’s if you want, think how much power you hold.”  
“You think I care about power? You think I care about what you want for me?” Cassie frowns staring blankly at him she looks to Jacob and Mark, whom stand between Sarah and the Avengers.  
“They care more for me than you ever did.”  
“Cassandra, be a good girl, be a good girl, come back to me..” Cassie growls in the back of her throat.  
“Want a demonstration of my power, sir?” The man laughs and Cassie jumps towards him claws sinking into flesh. His laughter echo’s off of Cassie screams. Her claws imbedded into Sarah’s neck. Dr. Miller stands behind Sarah using her as a shield. He smiles at her.  
“You really think I wouldn’t use the serum on myself, dumb child.” He grabs her by the throat, hauling her up as Sarah falls to the ground. The reappear in the basement, the cryo chamber opens with a hiss. His hair is longer and falls in waves, his nose looks like it’s been broken twice.  
“I can set this so it kills you, but I’ve decided a much more fitting punishment. Hold still.” He sneers as he clips her arms into the chairs restraints. Cassie’s breathing picks up and she whimpers, coughing slightly as she tries to catch her breath.  
“Ugh, just don’t puke again, it’s always a mess when that happens.” She can feel the paddles strapping around her head and she squeezes her eyes shut as she feels the foam press against her temples. She’s crying and hiccupping as he alters the dials and twists the knobs up as high as they go.  
“You wont remember a single thing after this.” Cassie’s entire body goes ridged jerking upwards and then pressing itself into the chair as the shocks pass through her.   
The entire team tense and look around as they hear Cassie’s screams reverberating through the lab.

“Where the hell are they!” Steve growls. Sarah squeezes her eyes shut. Groggily trying to sit up, she vomits a sludge like substance as her limbs sieze.  
“You gotta cut the power. I can bring one of you down there, it won’t be pretty but I can’t handle more than one of you…” Steve’s next to her in second.  
‘Cut the power.” Steve nods as he vanishes reappearing in a dimly lit basement. The screams are louder but they cut off suddenly. Sarah lays on the ground mumbling and staring glassy eyed as her limbs jerk and convulse. Steve rounds the corner and see’s Cassie strapped into a chair Dr. Miller leering over her.  
“Step away from her.”  
“She’s my child I can do whatever I want to her, I own her.”  
“Miller, you know how this has to end.”  
“I know, I fixed her for you by the way.” He smirks pulling a gun and moving it up. Steve launches his shield knocking Miller unconscious. Steve ties him up as all the lights flicker on. He pulls off the restraints and the foam clamps around Cassie’s head and cradles her against his chest, he returns to Sarah, picking her up carrying her as he drags the unconscious Miller using his shield. The return to the team has everyone looking nervously.  
“We’re looking for the antidote now, we know we have more, its easy to make, try to wake Cassie up, she can just give us some more venom.” Jacob looks worriedly over to her unconscious form. Mark’s rifling through bottles and he smiles as he pulls one out, only a few drops remain.  
“Perfect, we only need a few drops for the antidote.” Marks about to inject it into Sarah’s arm when her body clenches and seizes again. More dark sludge drips out of her mouth and she coughs heaving and gagging and she vomits something onto the ground.  
“Is that part of her stomach?”  
“This didn’t happen on the first day..”  
“Could it be a different vemon?” Clint watches Sarah struggle to sit up vomiting again.  
“Shit.. Cassie! Cassandra wake up!” She lies unmoving against the ground, Jacob winces as Bruce moves over to her.  
‘Cassie, come on, wake up..” he runs a hand through her hair and frowns shaking his head. Steve sighs nodding as Bruce picks up Cassie.  
“Wait the elevator…”


	19. Nemo Memoriam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My latin is a bit rusty considering it's been a few years, but i'm hoping the title is correct

“Is it still not working? Fuck, we’re trapped in- Tony!” Steve shouts as Tony blasts the ceiling of the room. Steve’s about to start lecturing him but Natasha puts a hand up to calm him. Tony grabs Bruce lifting him and Cassie up and is about to fly them out.  
“Tony! Take Sarah, she’s probably literally dying right now.” Bruce scolds him as he’s placed back on the ground; the twins look up, frowning at the expanse of the lab. Tony reappears smiling. Sam by his side.  
“I heard you all could use some help?” Steve nods and Sam picks Cassie from Bruce and flies off, as Tony returns, he stops in front of the twins.  
“I have some people working on the antidote for Sarah, they’ll need your help though, you probably know the venom better than us, lets go.” Steve nods to the twins and watches the hole that’s been blasted.  
“Hey Nat, you want to jump it?” Bruce frowns at them as Tony flies off with the twins.  
“Steve don’t even think about- fucking dammit..” Bruce watches as Natasha and Steve start to climb on the lab equipment and scramble up to the roof.  
“What’re you gonna do when you get to the roof? Jump off?” Bruce means it partly as a joke but he sighs when Steve shouts back. Bruce manages to climb on the table and get halfway up the wall thanks to the rubble jutting out before Sam swoops in laughing.  
“Stark has Nat and Steve.. Wanda’s in a bit of a mood so keep that in mind..” As Bruce is set down he can see Wanda tugging at Sam’s arm.  
“Wanda, no you can’t go see Cassie right now, she’s not feeling well..”  
“But I drew a picture! I wanna show her!!! It’ll make her feel better!!”  
“Not right now sweetie.. Bruce!” Natasha lowers her voice slightly.  
“Sarah’s stable, the venom worked it’s way out of her system, we have no idea what it did yet, but Cassie’s not waking up, Steve says he thinks Miller shocked her, he said the dials were at the max they could go…”  
“Full wipe.” They turn to Bucky.

‘What?”  
“They threatened me with a few times, it would wipe every part of my memory, I wouldn’t even remember who they were.”  
“So what happens when she wakes up?”  
“She might not remember any of us..”  
“Oh god Sarah…” Bruce turns to her as she rest in the med bay’s bed. Cassie is wrapped up in blankets on the other one.  
”Hey Sarah, how’re you feeling?”  
“Like I got stabbed, what happened? How’d we get outta the lab?” She tries to sit up and Bruce holds her shoulder as he lays her back down.  
“Tony blasted us out, you and Steve got Cassie, do you remember that?”  
“N-No, I just remember my stomach burning, felt like everything was on fire.. was there fire?”  
“No sweetie, Cassie, she accidentally, she stabbed you with her venom things and-“  
“She changed the venom right?”  
“Yeah how did you?”  
“I told her to, thought it might be safer.”  
“They wiped her, Bucky said it was a full wipe, has that ever happened before?”  
“A full wipe? I can’t think of anytime they had her in the chair even…” Sarah slowly eases herself up as everyone hears Cassie stir.  
“Cassie, Cass you okay baby?” Cassie sits up groggily and blinks at the team, Bruce steps forward and the heart monitor picks up.  
‘I want Papa..”  
“It’s okay Cassie, I’m here..” Bruce steps forward again and Cassie frowns.  
“You’re not Papa..”  
“Oh god, this is going to be messy..” Bruce frowns at the floor. The nurse that comes in smiles too brightly and offers Cassie a small bowl of soup. Cassie pauses her sniffles to drink some of it straight from the bowl. Half of it dribbles down her front and she flinches back when the nurse tries to wipe it from her mouth.  
“Here, let me..’ Bruce steps forward and Cassie presses herself back against the bed shivering.  
‘No, no I’m sorry I’ll be better, I’ll be better, no more tests, no more tests..” Bruce scoots himself closer and brushes his hand against her shoulder. The panic in her face registers as she tries to bite into his wrist. The nurse injects something into the IV bandaged on her wrist, and she goes limp within moments. Bruce decides it’s best if he’s not next to her when she wakes up next.  
Cassie's quiet when she wakes up next. She doesn't cry out for anyone or even move. Bruce would swear she wasn't even breathing if it wasn't for the heart monitor and the slight huff as she sucks in more air. He’s half asleep in the chair, Sarah's curled in the armchair staring at Cassie's body. She hasn't moved since the nurses said she could visit. Bruce always leaves before they remove her for the night. He made the mistake of staying too late and Sarah's screams chilled him. Cassie's silence was even worse.   
She doesn't move but the doctors and physical therapists work to keep her muscles from atrophying. She doesn’t scream when they move near her now. She still trembles when Bruce steps too close.


	20. Visitation

It's quiet when Bruce arrives but he can hear another voice talking to Sarah. He stands by the door and watches Pietro and her sitting on the couch, Wanda's sitting in the arm chair; a tray pulled over it for her to place paper and crayons. Bruce wonders if she's drawing pictures for Cassie, he worries about the wall space in the hospital room but laughs to himself for such a silly thought. He has to admit it feels good to so concerned about crayon drawings. Steve appears frowning; he touches Bruce's shoulder softly.  
"We found more missions, you know how Miller was obsessive about the super soldier serum and things involving it.."  
"Yeah?"   
"Some of Cassie's missions were to gather intel on scientists that'd have information on anything relating to it.."  
"Everyone who had anything to do with it is dead.. Even people who had things to do with my failures, they wouldn't know anything about it all my research was destroyed.."  
"Bruce do you know anyone named Elizabeth Ross?" Bruce lets a shiver pass through him.  
"Yes. Why? Has she been hurt?"  
"No, well unless you count the cat she adopted that turned out to be Cassie as a severe emotional distress situation.."  
"He spied on Betty? Why on earth would he do that?"  
"I have the most connection to you." She smiles from behind Steve.  
"And its not Ross anymore, by the way, just call me Betty" Bruce offers his hand out and she pulls him into a hug.  
"So I'm guessing that’s Cassie and Sarah’s on the couch? They look sweet." Betty steps forward and Sarah’s eyes narrow as she looks up.  
"Who're you?"  
"A friend of Bruce’s.. My names Betty, pleasure to meet you." She holds out her hand for Sarah to shake, Sarah hesitates for a moment before returning her grasp.  
"I'm just here because I was told your little sister was spying on me for your father, I wanted to make sure she was okay.. Also Bruce asked me to help because he's useless when it comes to helping what he see's as kids." Betty smiles again and Sarah nods standing up and walking over to Cassie. Sarah brushes her hair back and watches Bruce talking to Steve for a moment. Betty hears her mumble something and asks her to repeat it, she can barely hear as Sarah whispers it more to herself than anyone else.  
"He's a good dad, he's not useless, I know Me an' Cassie don't have a proper frame of reference for that, but he’s good, loads better than what we had, its nice to have someone who wants to help, even if he does some stuff wrong.."  
"Well I’m glad to meet another Bruce supporter, have you two met Hulk yet?"

"Who's Hulk?" Betty turns back to watch Bruce for a moment.  
"He's a very close friend of mine and Bruce's.. he' very sweet, he looks a bit scary though.."  
"Huh, well it'd probably be good for us to meet him, should I ask d-Dr. Banner about it?"  
"That might not be the best-" Sarah's already next to Bruce hand on his arm as she asks about Hulk. Betty see's the exact moment Bruce realizes Betty told her and his face tenses but he nods explaining it'll take a little while before they'll be able to meet. Sarah nods and Betty smiles again.  
“Now I’ve been told Cassie’s having memory problems, due to being shocked, has there been any improvement?”  
“She thinks Bruce is our dad…”  
“Well he is isn’t he?”  
“Our other dad, the bad one… Dr. Miller.”  
“Oh dear.” Sarah looks up to see Betty looking sadly.  
“Steve and Bruce think it’s best if she stays with me for a little while, she doesn’t know who I am, but I can help her figure out how much she actually remembers, just so that way you guys aren’t too surprised, and it won’t stress her out as much do you think that’s a good idea?”’  
“Why’re you asking me, I’m just her sister..”  
“You’re her caretaker, on all the legal forms, blood relatives are highest. I need your permission.”  
“Please help her.” Betty smiles making sure Cassie is still sleeping.  
“She wont remember being here, not with the sedative they gave her, you won’t be able to visit either..”  
“Anything is fine, as long as you help her.” Betty nods and Dr. Cho appears to help her bring Cassie to a black van.

Cassie wakes from the shocks in a small bedroom. It takes her a moment to remember her name is Cassandra, although 53 flashes in her mind and lights up fireworks behind her eyes. The woman who stands by the foot of her bed looks up from her chart and smiles  
“Good to see you’re awake, do you know your name sweetheart?”  
“Cassie..”  
“Do you know your last name?”  
“Fifty three!” She smiles at the woman who nods slowly exhaling.  
“Well it’s good enough, alright sweetie I’m going to ask you a few questions and-“  
“ ‘S’not polite..”  
“Pardon?”  
“My sister says you’re not supposed to ask someone’s name an’ not tell your own, it’s rude!”  
“Well she’s very smart. What’s your sisters name?” Cassie shakes her head.  
“She also said I shouldn’t talk to strangers, but you don’t look like one.. Oh!! You’re my mom! My sister is Sarah! She’s super nice and pretty and can teleport places that’re super hard to reach, one time, one time she.. I can’t ‘member..” Cassie grips the sheets on the bed tightly.  
“It’s alright sweetie, now, lets have some breakfast, does that sounds nice? Dr. Cho is here, do you remember her?”  
“She made, she did, somethin’ I dunno what but she looks real pretty..” Cassie waves shyly holding the woman’s hand. Dr. Cho smiles.

“Nice to see you again Cassie, I heard you wanted some breakfast?”  
“Yeah mama said she’d make some I really want pancakes but I’m not supposed to get what I want cause imma bad dog.”  
“No sweetheart, you’re not a bad dog, you can have pancakes if you want; with blueberries?”  
“Blu-blueberries?”  
“Yeah, you can help us add them.” Cassie nods and Dr. Cho shoots the other woman a look over her head.  
“Mom?” she mouths, Betty shrugs smiling as Cassie looks up.  
‘It’s turning purple. Purple is my papa’s favourite colour!”  
“You remember your Papa?”  
“He took me away from the labs cause they were mean people, and he liked purple. He didn’t like green though, said it made him angry. I don’t remember anything else. Do you think he still loves me?”  
“Of course sweetie. Why would you think that?”  
“Cause he sent me to my mom, my other Papa said if I wasn’t good I’d end up with her, she lives in a box! He said it was real small and filled with worms like how I had’ta live with rats.”  
‘Oh dear, well we wont do that at all, now after the pancakes do you want to go visit some of my friends?”  
“You have friends!! Do they have kids too!! I wanna play!! We could play princesses!!! I could be a unicorn!!!” Cassie bounces around the kitchen settling down to grasp her pancakes in her hands shoveling them into her mouth.  
“Done! Can we go play now?” She smiles through a mouthful of food. Betty wipes her chin and chides her to eat slower.  
“Yes Mama.” Dr. Cho smiles and Betty rolls her eyes.  
“Alright, let’s get going! It’ll be a surprise!”  
When they pull up to the Avengers compound Betty relaxes as Cassie’s face lights up.  
“My sister lives here!!!” Betty smiles holding her hand and waiting for the elevator.  
“Very good sweetie, now lets see if she’s-“  
“Sarah!! Look!! Mom’s here!!! It’s mama!! She came back for us I told ya’ she would she wasn’t in a cemetarium or whatever you called it! She was just busy with work!! She’s a scientist just like Papa said!!!”

Both Bruce and Sarah stare at Betty who awkwardly holds onto Cassie’s hand.  
“Oh, I could have sworn she was uh, busy, and wow, that’s great Cassie.” Sarah stares helplessly as Cassie rushes over to her.  
“Mom’s the best!! She made pancakes and I got to have some!!! They had blue things in them!! And there were no worms or rats in the house!! And it wasn’t a box!” Sarah nods automatically as Cassie drags her towards the couch.  
‘Now I’m back so you have’ta play with me cause you’re my sister and mama said that’s what good sisters do!!”  
“Well,” Betty pauses making sure Cassie is out of earshot. She’s currently snuggled with Wanda, both wrapped up under blankets watching My Little Pony.  
“The first night she was there, she had a lot of, night terrors, she didn’t remember them in the morning but she’d wake during the night screaming and trying to bite me. I didn’t even consider giving her a sedative cause of the fact her father was a scientist, so I just held her. It seemed to calm her down quiet a bit. The next few nights passed like that. I’m not sure she remembers much besides a few hours before we came here. She was really sweet, but very confused and disconnected from everything. She would just sit and stare at the wall and then burst out crying for me, or for Sarah. She got pretty attached to me really quickly. One of the nights she had nightmares about, one of the men who ‘did bad things to her’ and me holding her wasn’t good enough so I sang to her, and she got really excited. Apparently I sounded like you,” She gestures to Sarah.  
“So I’m guessing she connected whatever dots she needed to feel safe. I don’t mind at all. I’m just glad I’m able to help.”  
“She uh, we, we already have a Dad, we don’t; we don’t need a mom.”  
“Oh, of course, I’m not saying I have to be your mom, just a little extra help for Cassie.” Sarah nods smiling stiffily at Betty.  
“You do realize when Cassie finds out you two know each other, she’s going to latch onto that.”  
“Oh, Bruce and I? We’re not anything right now.”  
“I’m not saying you are, just a little warning.” Sarah smirks parroting Betty’s words.

“Mama!”  
“Yes sweetie?”  
“Papa said you used to date, why’d you stop?”  
“Oh, well I had to move really far away and-“  
“Mr. Phil, he’s Jemma’s daddy, he says if two people aren’t dating its cause they hate each other or cause they’re married. Do you and papa hate each other?”  
“No sweetie we just, haven’t gotten married yet.“  
“ But you have to!! I have’ta tell Uncle Tony! He has a lotta money so he can pay for it!”  
“Cassie wait!” Betty turns to Sarah who smirk grows.  
“Betcha Steve gets you a present.”  
“He won’t, we’re not getting married.”  
“Not yet. If Cassie has her way you will, and she almost always gets her way.” Betty rolls her eyes.


	21. Baby Birds

Betty turns when she hears an almost silent sniffling. She turns to find Sarah standing in the doorway swaying between entering and turning away.  
“Sarah? I’m sorry about earlier it was rude of me to force you to say I was you guys’ mom.”  
“She doesn’t remember.”  
“What?”  
“Cassie doesn’t remember our mom, I sort of do, I mean, I have bits of her. I don’t, she..” Sarah looks up before squeezing her eyes shut as a sob rips from her.  
“You look like her. I don’t want to forget her. Please. I can’t.” Betty reaches her hand out hesitating as Sarah looks at it. Betty starts to lower her hand before Sarah almost knocks her over, clinging to her, arms digging painfully into Betty’s shoulders as she’s hugged. Betty sighs.  
“You won’t forget her. I’m not a replacement. I know that. It’s just right now, that’s what Cassie needs, so it’s who I’m going to be for her. If she wakes up tomorrow and decides that I’m just her Papa’s new friend, that’s okay. I’ll be sad about it she’s a sweetheart, but it doesn’t change the fact that the most important reason I’m here is to help her. No matter what or who she needs me to be I’m going to try my best to be that, for her. No one is saying I have to be that for you, understand? It’s just to help Cassie.” Sarah nods pulling back slightly from Betty. She turns from the room walking to the doorway and vanishing before she steps through it. Betty assumes she’s gone to her room and grabs for her phone.  
“Hey Nessa, It’s Betty, I know its kind of late, but I was wondering if you’d want to see Sarah tomorrow, she’s been feeling a bit down and I think spending time around family would help.” Betty pauses listening to Nessa shuffle something. Betty makes her way to the kitchen, turning as the TV light flickers  
“Yeah sounds good, I dug out the tapes you asked about, there’s about 3 days worth of watching to do, you sure this is something she’ll like? I always figured she’d be bothered seeing how everything used to be. She never brings it up.” Betty watches Sarah asleep on the couch, her arm wrapped around Cassie as the news plays softly. Betty switches the channel and laughs.

“She’ll love it, we’ll be around at noon?”  
“Sounds good, I’m guess you’ll want lunch?”   
“That would be lovely. Its warm enough to eat outside now right?”  
“Yep, although we got baby birds stealing our food recently, so guard your plate when you come over.”  
Betty doesn’t tell Sarah why they’re going; only that Nessa was making lunch. Steve and Natasha repeatedly insist they don’t need to bring Wanda as well, but Clint sways them by saying Laura would love to have everyone back. Tony pretends to hate getting dragged along by Sam, who jokingly calls it a family outing. Everyone pretends to laugh and ignore the visible comfort it offers each of them.  
“Betcha can’t run with both of us to the end of the field in ten seconds!” It’s Lila who shouts this, jumping onto Pietro’s back as he pretends to struggle under her weight.  
“Well if Cooper decides to get over here we can test it!” She shouts twisting around to wave her brother over. Wanda looks up from the colouring book to watch Nathaniel giggle as Natasha swings him around. Steve plucks her up spinning her as she squeals and laughs. Cassie is sitting under the table Bruce shakes his head at her and she blinks rubbing at her eyes.  
“Sam, I hate you so much.”  
“Don’t blame me, I didn’t realize she could make literal puppy eyes.”  
“She’s a shapeshifter what did you expect.”  
“For her to not be so cute.”  
“Impossible, illegal!” Cassie giggles smiling up at Sam.  
“And where did you learn that?”  
“During playgroup; Matt taught me when he was talking ‘bout court stuff, he works in the big courthouse!! Said I needed to say it when someone called me not cute!” Sam nods and makes his way over to Clint who’s at the grill, swiping his hand at Tony.  
“Tony, stop, I don’t care if you can make my grill float I just want to cook everyone hot dogs and burgers, that’s all.”  
“But Clint, it would be so much easier, and could cook so many more things and-“  
“No arc reactor in my grill. Ugh no matter how cool it would be, it’s not safe for the kids and- no, just no Tony, it’s not safe. Besides what if you ruin the grill.” Tony wilts under Clint’s glare; he watches Laura walk by and leans closer to Tony.  
“There’s one in the barn you can mess with, bring Bucky, he likes science sh-stuff right?” Tony smiles and walks over to Bucky quietly explaining and both of them rush off to the barn. Nessa looks over to Sarah.

“Hey, how’re you doing?”  
“I’m alright, it’s weird having Betty be called Mom, I can’t just not call her that cause Cassie gets confused and- What’s that?” Nessa smiles holding up a VHS tape.  
“Home movies. We can watch them later okay?”  
“Home movies?”  
“Yeah old stuff of when we were kids, dad, well my dad loved recording us. You’re not going to believe some of the stuff we did and-“  
“Can we watch them now!” Sarah jumps up from her seat grasping for the tape.  
“No, first lunch.” Clint waves them over and Nessa places the tape down, exchanging it for a plate and letting Clint serve her a burger. Sarah takes two hot dogs adding mustard and ketchup to both.  
“You got any onions?”  
“You eat onions on your hot dogs?”  
“No I eat them like apples, yes I eat them on my hot dogs.” Nessa laughs as Sarah shakes her head at Clint.  
“Here’s your onions you heathen.”  
“Clint you love onions.” Clint turns to Laura glaring at her.  
“Betrayed by my own sister, how could you.”  
“Wait Laura’s your sister?” Sarah places her half eaten hot dog down.  
“Yes? Did you, oh right no one explained it to you, yeah; Laura and I are siblings. She got the farm; I got the superhero title. Pretty fair deal.”  
Lunch passes by mostly silent. Tony and Bucky return to the group dragging the half broken grill behind them.  
‘Clint, what did you let them do to-“ Laura stares as the grill moves, shifting on its own mechanics clicking and grinding together to form a fire pit.  
“Bam! Mood lighting! You’re welcome.” Tony throws his hands out, Bucky smirks.  
“Tony wanted to make it a robot flame thrower but I figured this would get more use. Hey!” Bucky shouts as Cooper rushes up grabbing his burger and rushing off with it. Nessa laughs nodding to Betty.  
“See birds, birds everywhere stealing our food.” Betty laughs, turning and talking to Bruce, Nessa stands up, brushing her hand on Sarah’s shoulder and gesturing into her house. Sarah follows watching Nessa put the tape into the slot above the TV.  
“I’m going to skip some of this, but there’s a part I really want you to see, okay?”  
“What is it?”  
“You’ll see. Just give me a sec-“ Nessa smiles as she fast forwards through what appears to be a tour of the house. She hits the pause button and throws a blanket towards Sarah as well as a box of tissues.  
“What’re these for?”  
“Trust me.” Sarah nods and turns herself back towards the TV screen.

A man’s face is in the way, His hair is graying, but mostly a blonde colour and he laughs as the camera pans downwards to show a much younger Nessa grasping at his leg.  
“DAD! You have’ta let me film!” the camera shakes slightly.  
“No sweets you’ll drop it, besides I thought you wanted to play with Sarah?”  
“No she’s just playing science with mom! It’s boring!”  
“Well let’s go see then, you can be the narrator, tell everyone what’s happening okay?” Sarah watches as the camera switches to a view of the floor, she can hear footsteps and is about to ask Nessa what’s the point when her breath catches in her throat.  
“Sarah, careful you’ll hurt yourself!”  
“Mom.” Sarah breathes out scooting to the edge of the couch. She watches as the camera shifts focus again, Nessa sitting on the arm of the chair and leering over a very small Sarah in a white button up. Small Sarah throws her hands up laughing and tossing confetti into the air watching it flutter to the floor.  
“Sarah! That’s toxic! You need to be decomtaminated!” Small Sarah is then scooped up and pulled away from the confetti giggling and trying to keep her face serious.  
“Mama it’s fine! Just paper!!” The camera moves again and instead of tracking Small Sarah it now tracks a woman who looks like an older version of her. Sarah touches her own face, her hand then reaching towards the screen.  
“We have get away! Hold on tight! Honey you too, we have to get everyone away from the toxins!” Small Sarah giggles as does Nessa both clinging to the woman as the camera is squished so it rests looking at the mans chin.  
“Hold on!” Small Sarah giggles again and suddenly the screen goes dark.


	22. Playing House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: When I was around four I threw up on my cousin's dog

“No! What happened? I don’t.” The screen refocuses to a bedroom; Nessa and Sarah are tossed onto the bed both squealing with excitement.  
“Honey you know that’s not safe right?”  
“It’ll be fine sweetie, you worry to much, it’s just the bed. I’m not tossing them onto the floor.” Sarah watches her mom vanish and then reappear next to the bed.  
“Boo!!”  
“Ahhh Mama you’re contaminated as well!” Sarah squeals plucking confetti from her hair.  
“Oh no!! We better hope the great scientist Sarah can find a cure for the venom the paper has given me then!” Small Sarah sits up and nods gravely.  
“We have to go back to the site! It’ll be a dangerous mission, only the bravest can come and-“  
“I wanna go!!”  
“No, you’re too little you’ll get hurt!” Nessa and Sarah shout over to the doorway.  
“Mama Sarah says I can’t go with you!!”  
“She’s right Cass, you could get hurt, plus you’re the only one uncontaminated! You’ll have to stay in quarantine!” the screen focuses on Cassie wearing an oversized shirt and socks she clutches a worn mouse plush.  
“I don’t wanna!” A sneeze follows, and a round of coughs. The man passes the camera over to Nessa.  
“Alright Cassie-Bear, you gotta go back to bed.”  
“Nooooo I wanna stay an’ play!!”  
“Sweetheart, you’re sick, remember what happened last time you tried to play while you were sick?”  
“Yeah, I threw up on Petey.”  
“Yeah, so lets get you back to bed. Nessa, don’t drop the camera, I’m trusting you to document the expedition into the site, makes sure to record everything.” Nessa gives a stern nod before grasping their mother’s hand as Sarah does the same on the other side, before they vanish.  
“Day one of the trek to the site. We have enough food and water to last us months, we’re unsure if there will be other creatures at the site. We hope to find- WE’RE UNDER ATTACK EVERYONE RUN!!!’ Nessa laughs turning the camera to capture a massive dog rushing at them.  
“Get back to mom she’ll protect us!!” Small Sarah laughs rushing to smack into her mothers leg giggling and hiding behind her. The dog comes to a stop and Sarah watches it sit down and look at them.  
“Cassie had powers back then?” Sarah turns as Nessa pauses the video. “Sarah, that was our dog, Petey. You remember him?”  
“Petey? Mom? Mom got him for Christmas, cause we all wanted to get different things! I remember! She said we had to share the present and I was so mad! And then we drove all the way to that farm! It was so far away!” Nessa nods laughing.  
“The farm is about thirty minutes down the road, the family still lives there.” Sarah turns her head to look at Nessa.  
“They wouldn’t remember us would they?”  
“Probably not. Anyways, look.” Nessa hits play and Small Sarah clings and giggles as Nessa passes the camera to her.

“The wild wolf has claimed a victim, go, carry on my research!” Nessa giggles turning and petting Petey as he flops over onto the ground.  
“Hold on tight okay?” Sarah closes her eyes as her mom talks. She opens them to find herself back in the room she first saw. Her mother sets her down and smiles nodding towards the carpet covered in confetti.  
“The virus is contained in the paper! We just have to burn the paper!! We need fire!!” Small Sarah’s face lights up  
“Sarah no!” Her mother lunges forward knocking the camera off, as it lands on it’s side Sarah watches herself touching the paper laughing as it lights up burning into ash in seconds.  
“Sarah!” The fire vanishes; smoke wafting up as her mom picks the camera up.   
“What have we said about powers?”  
“No using them in the house.”  
“And what did you just do?”  
“Used it in the house.” Sarah watches her Mom sigh pulling Small Sarah onto her lap.  
“Sweetie it’s just to keep everyone safe, I just don’t want you getting hurt. I love you Sarah.”  
“I love you too Mama!” Small Sarah smiles up at her and then towards the camera.  
“We did it, we saved everyone!! Yayyy!” Sarah watches her mom pick her up and spin her.  
“I love you Sarah, don’t ever forget okay. I’m so proud of you. I bet you’ll be an even better scientist than me.” Nessa pauses the video footage.  
“Nessa, can you play it again.”  
“The whole thing?”  
“No just, just the last bit. Please.” Nessa nods smiling, pushing the tissue’s closer to Sarah’s lap.

The rewound footage starts up.  
“I love you Sarah, don’t ever forget- I love you Sarah, don’t ever forget- I love you Sarah don’t ever-“ Bruce stays quiet as he stands in the doorway watching Sarah hit the rewind over and over. Betty stands next to him.  
“She know you asked Nessa to set this up?”  
“No, she doesn’t need to.” Both Bruce and Betty turn and join the rest of the team in the garden.  
“Get Sarah and Nessa out here too! We need everyone; we’re doing a race to the end of the garden.” Steve laughs as he points to the edge of the fence past the barn.  
“Alright.” Bruce steps back towards the house, about to call out to Nessa and Sarah when he see’s the Sarah on the TV lighting the paper on fire.  
“Sarah.” The footage plays on and Sarah turns fearfully towards Bruce’s voice.  
“Come on, Steve organized a race for everyone, you have to try.” Bruce smiles pretending he didn’t see anything and ignoring the relief that crosses Sarah and Nessa’s faces. Sarah vanishes and reappears in front of Steve.  
‘Everyone here? Bruce you have to run too!” Bruce sighs laughing as he lines up with everyone else.  
“Alright Pietro no powers, Sarah same goes for you. Alright everyone ready? Go!” Steve charges off, Bucky easily keeping pace. Bruce watches Sarah and Nessa both almost keeping up with Natasha and Betty. There’s a suddenly silver blur and he can practically hear Steve roll his eyes.  
“Pietro no powers!” Pietro looks affronted as he catches up to Steve, Lila clinging on his back.  
“I didn’t cheat!” Steve turns to see Cassie sitting on the fence.  
“You didn’t say I couldn’t use my powers!! Just that Sarah and Pietro couldn’t use there’s!”

“Cassie get down from there! Come here!” Sarah watches as Cassie shifts into a dog, she’s not entirely sure why her chest hurts as Cassie skids to a halt sitting and looking up at her as her tail wags.  
“Come on, you gotta be a real girl right now, no more of this dog stuff okay?”  
“ Kay. Nessa says she gets upset when I look like that, do ya know why? I tried to talk to her but she got real upset and told me I was too little to remember.”  
“You look like a dog she, a dog we used to have. Remember?”  
“Nu-uh I don’t ‘member having a doggy. Papa said animals were only good for ‘speriments. I remember we had to go visit him a lot. And he gave us a bunch of shots..”  
“Yeah that was around the time he got custody of you two, kept everything super hush about it, but you were only allowed to spend weekends with Mom, cause of how much she worked. The court said it was better for you guys to stay with your dad. Which is ridiculous to me cause they worked at the same company. I guess he paid everyone off probably.”  
“I member the fire though!”  
“Fire? That burned down the house?” Sarah pulls Cassie closer.  
“Yeah! I member Nessa was there and you broke her favourite dolly so she hit you and her Daddy got so mad he yelled at her and you got even madder cause you said her daddy was gonna punish her like how Papa punished us and then-!”  
“Dad left us alone and we tried to make cookies and the fire started!!! Yes, a horrible horrible accident.” Nessa tenses as Bruce and Betty turn to her shouting.  
“Mark and Jacob were telling us about that, apparently the gas blew and it just leveled everything, everyone was burned alive almost instantly right? “  
“Yeah Sarah and Cassie were at their dads, and I was over at a friends house.” Nessa shifts nervously before smiling slightly.  
“Sorry it’s still hard to talk about.” Betty nods.  
“It’s alright, some things can’t be easily healed.” Bruce narrows his eyes at Nessa.  
“Nessa, do you know if any of your mother’s research survived? We have hundreds of reports from Dr. Miller, but they’re a little, hard to read. Hopefully your mother has a less dark sense to her reports?”  
“I’m not entirely sure, I can see what I can dig up from the attic.”


	23. Snack Time

“Bruce was telling me that you get anxiety attacks like him, I can-“  
“It’s fine. I have a handle on it.” Sarah turns away from Betty as they make their way back from Laura's farm.  
“I’m not saying you don’t just saying I know some techniques to help keep you calm, they work on hulk so that’s a plus.”  
“You can’t use deep breathing techniques when I’ve hulked out.” Bruce frowns, walking over to integrate himself into the conversation. He pauses looking confused as Betty gestures to him.  
“I wasn’t offering her breathing techniques. Sarah, do you like brownies?”  
“No. Betty no. You’re not making her brownies. She’s a kid!”  
“She’s old enough.” Betty shrugs hiding her smile.  
“No!” Bruce snarls stepping forward and pulling Sarah behind him as both Natasha and Sam make their way into the room.  
“Whoa Bruce what’s got you riled up?”  
“I wanted to make Sarah brownies, but Mr. I’m-a-responsible-dad-now said no.” Betty rolls her eyes laughing.  
“I don’t see a problem with brownies, just make sure Cassie doesn’t have any cause of her chocolate allergy.”  
“No, no one gets brownies.”  
“Bruce you used to love them. I’m offended you don’t want any now.”  
“I do, just don’t give ‘em to my kids.”  
“Technically she’s my daughter, since Cassie is her sister, if she wants a brownie she can have a brownie.”  
“As her father figure, no. No brownies." Sarah pouts nodding to Cassie who throws Bruce her puppy dog eyes.  
"Stop that. You can't even have any! Fine, you can make them normal, not ‘hulked out’ as you called it.” Betty smiles, laughing. Bruce hangs his head in defeat.  
"This family is being torn apart by snack time." Bruce exaggeratedly throws his hands out.  
“You loved them, come on, you died when I told you I used Gamma bomb in them.” Betty nudges Bruce who starts to laugh. Sam stares.  
“Wait, Betty did you make him pot brownies?”  
“Yes? Did you think we were talking about normal brownies?”  
“What’s pot?” Sarah turns to Sam. Sm shakes his head.  
“Ask your dad.”  
Betty laughs and makes her way over to Cassie as Bruce sits Sarah at the table. He fidgets slightly.  
"Okay so- Well it's. It's something you-"  
"Dad just tell me." Sarah stays quiet as he starts talking.  
“Oh! Why are you calling it pot?”  
“It’s a slang name for it.”  
“Slang name?”  
“Like a nickname, like how Tony calls everyone names.”  
“Ohhh, that’s stupid.”


	24. Breakout

Sarah looks up from the scattered files on the table and ground in front of her. She’s shaking, her breath coming out in choked pants as she trembles. Steve winces when he see’s pictures of Cassie poking out from a few of them.  
“Sweetie the best thing you can do is survive, he’s in prison, he’s getting his ass handed to him daily and he’s miserable. You need to do better than him, prove to him you’re worth all the life he wouldn’t let you have.” Sarah sniffles and nods. She gathers up the files holding them out with shaking hands. Steve pulls them from her hands.  
“I got this, you and Betty just head back to bed okay?”  
“Oh, okay, g’night Steve.”  
“Goodnight Sarah.” Sarah lets Betty hold her hand, moving both of them towards her room.  
“Come on sweetie, I know that must have been horrifying to read, lets just try to get some sleep.” Sarah nods but pauses, wiping her eyes as Betty helps her into her pyjamas and into bed. Sarah doesn’t let go of Betty’s hand and Betty doesn’t pull away, sitting next to her on her bed.  
“I’ll just sit here till you fall asleep. It’s no problem I don’t really want to be alone after all that either.” Sarah nods coughing a little and blowing her nose.  
“Um, sorry, never mind..”  
“It’s alright, I’m here to talk..” Sarah tries to hide her tears for a moment before everything seems to break and she sobs slightly.  
“I just, why did he choose Cassie, why did he make her do all that, and let her be used by all those people, he was supposed to protect us, I. I was supposed to help her, I’m her sister, I should have, I should ha-“ Sarah’s wrapped in Betty’s arms  
“Shhh, it’s alright Sarah, it’s okay. You’re a good sister, Cassie is lucky to have you, we’re lucky to get to know you. You’re a good sister and a good person. Cassie loves you, just like everyone who cares about you. Don’t ever doubt that. You’re good, you matter, you’re loved.” Sarah chokes slightly sobbing and clinging to Betty.  
“Everyone’s going to hate me when they find out I didn’t help her. They’ll be so mad.”  
“Sarah, they won’t I promise. Nobody will hate you.”  
“You promise?”  
“Of course, here, scoot over, I’ll sleep with you. I don’t really want to be alone right now..”  
“You could go sleep with dad..”  
“He has Cassie, besides he snores.” Sarah giggles slightly, Betty kisses her forehead and pulls the blanket around them.  
“Goodnight Sarah, I’m right here if you need.”  
“T-thanks Mom, I love you.”  
“Love you to sweetie, now lets get some rest.”

 

They get the call at 4:50 AM. Coulson’s in a panic, unsure of who he’s talking to, but he manages to let them know that Dr. Miller has escaped, the doors blown off with explosives. The video feed captures a group of people, dressed in all black dragging him out and through the doors before the cameras shut down.  
“It was planned, probably for months.. They had EMP’s to black out all the tech, the doors were powered down, they weren’t locked, they blew them off to prove we wouldn’t notice and we didn’t. We have no idea if they were friendly to us or not and-“ Phil pauses.  
“And yeah, the beach trip, we can call back later I just wanted to run some ideas by you, hello Sarah! You’re up very late..” Steve freezes.  
‘Sarah go back to-“  
“He escaped? Dr. Miller got out?” her breath hiccups and stutters.  
“Sarah, it’s okay, it’s okay..” Steve pulls her into a tight hug.  
‘It’s okay sweetheart, let me get Bruce and-“  
“No I’m okay. I can handle it for the night, don’t want to disturb him and- fuck.”  
“Langu-fuck Cassie, sweetie what are you doing-“ Her screams jolt everyone awake.  
“Cassie sweetheart it’s okay, it’s okay, they’ll get him back in jail, it’s okay baby.” Bruce has her wrapped up in his arms as she whines and squirms. Sarah looks upset, rubbing her arm and keeping her head down.  
“It was my fault I’m sorry.. I should have-“  
“No sweetie, it wasn’t, don’t blame yourself, come here, come here.” Bruce pulls her close and kisses her forehead.  
“How about we go back to bed alright? We can talk more tomorrow morning, er after more sleep.” Sarah nods turning to her room.  
“Sarah, come on, we all need this.” Bruce holds his hand out.  
“Mom says you snore. Um, Betty! Betty says you, you snore..” Sarah jolts and curls away from his hand. Betty places a hand on her shoulder.  
“Come on Sarah, if we all pile on him he wont be able to snore.” Sarah laughs a little waving goodnight to Steve.  
“Sam quit spying.”  
“Cassie’s quiet good at gathering herself a family.”  
“She’s been through a lot, all those files, we could do it you know.. Take him to court. Let everyone know what happened.”  
“You want to put Cassie and Sarah through that.. What about their other sister, or the Twins? What would that mean for them?”  
“A chance at family, a real one.”  
“Steve, they already have that.” Steve nods and retreats back to his room, he passes Natasha on the way, Wanda curled against her chest and Pietro’s arm looped over both of them. He follows Sam, curling back under the covers. Sam kisses his temple and watches him settle onto the pillows.  
“You don’t need to protect everyone all the time, we can help each other, you don’t have to be everyone’s shield.” Steve sighs nodding pulling Sam close.  
“I’m still yours though.”  
“Big spoon, not shield Steve.”  
“I’m Captain America, if I say shield then it’s shield, fuck your big spoon talk.”

 

Steve doesn’t wake again, he asks Friday if anything else happened while he was asleep and she alerts him that Bruce ordered the soundproofing on his room up to function. Steve makes his way towards it as Friday informs him none of them have woken up.   
As the door slides open He finds Bruce asleep his head in Betty’s lap, Betty curled around his head, Sarah arched around his back and he can slightly see Cassie’s head poking out from Bruce’s chest. Sarah watches Steve and untangles herself from Betty and Bruce’s arms. She smiles softly and Steve nods to her as she follows him to breakfast.  
“We met the hulk.” It’s so quiet Steve knows he wouldn’t have heard it without his hearing.  
“You what?” He stares at Sarah as she takes a cup of coffee from Natasha.  
“What happened? Is everyone okay?”  
“Sarah just said she met Hulk, Hulk! I can’t believe Banner would be so irresponsible! How could he know how Hulk was going to react! It could have been dangerous, Sarah sweetie I’m not mad at you, I’m not even mad at Bruce, it’s just.. It took us all a long time to meet Hulk, we had some issues and-“  
“He wasn’t mean like dad told us he was. He was nice. He let Cassie climb on him, and he played with us. Mom was there, so we were all okay..” Sarah smiles nervously and sips her coffee as Betty walks in.  
“So Hulk?”  
“Yes, it’s why we had the soundproofing up, didn’t want all the screaming to wake everyone up.”  
“Screaming?”  
“Hulk taught us how to roar, so we can go into this room and do it if we get too overwhelmed to talk..”  
“Oh, that’s..”  
”Sweet.” Sam smiles as Bruce walks in holding Cassie. He pauses for a moment.  
“So Sarah tell all of you about-“  
“Uncle Steve papa can turn huge and green!!! He’s so cool!! He taught us how to roar!! I can do it even better than the lions now!!! Papa’s the best, and when he was green he let me climb on him!! I got to touch the ceiling!! That’s super high!!!” Steve smiles.  
“The ceiling? That’s way higher than even I can reach!” He laughs smiling at her as she squirms and peers over the counter.  
“Are those pancakes?”  
“Yes, we’re making more, do you want anything special on them?”  
“Can we make them green!!” Cassie smiles at Bruce, Sarah nods.  
“Yeah we should make the all different colours!!”  
“We can make them rainbows!!! Rainbow pancakes!!” Wanda cheers  
‘Rainbows it is then, alright I’m going to need you three to help mix all the colours..” Sam nods slowly pouring the pancake mix into separate bowls.


End file.
